We download the tar.gz from the mysql site www.mysql.com
place it in /usr/local unpack the tar.gz with the command
tar -xzf mysql-5.1.31-linux-i686-glibc23.tar.gz
(we have assumed from a real case that the version is 5.1.31, in which case the file name is mysql-5.1.31-linux-i686-glibc23.tar.gz) we create the mysql symlink
ln -s mysql-5.1.31-linux-i686-glibc23 mysql
create users/groups
groupadd mysql
useradd -g mysql mysql
initialise the db
cd mysql
./scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
we add the necessary permissions to the directories
chown -R root:mysql .
chown -R mysql:mysql data
start the mysql daemon in the background with the command
./bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
we configure the environment variables in /root/.bashrc (or in your home) add the lines
MYSQL=/usr/local/mysql
export MYSQL
PATH=$MYSQL/bin:.:$PATH
export PATH
we also add the lines in /etc/init.d/bootmisc.sh to handle the automatic start-up of the mysql service
MYSQL=/usr/local/mysql
export MYSQL
PATH=$MYSQL/bin:.:$PATH
export PATH