Remove Mariadb 10.3 and Mysql completely from Ubuntu

I have been trying to remove all the package.

apt-get remove --purge mysql*
apt-get remove --purge mysql
apt-get remove --purge mariadb
apt-get remove --purge mariadb*
apt-get --purge remove mariadb-server
apt-get --purge remove python-software-properties

But after apt-get remove --purge mysql*, they need me to run apt --fix-broken install first

Try to remove mariadb apt-get remove --purge mariadb* and get

`Failed to stop mysql.service: Unit mysql.service not loaded.`
/usr/bin/deb-systemd-helper: error: unable to read mariadb.service

Try to start mysql and get this

Failed to start mysql.service: Unit mysql.service not found.

What should i do to remove all of it?

3 Answers

I had success dealing with a similar problem by following the some of the steps listed in this post.

1. Detect all MariaDB and MySQL packages

   apt search mariadb | grep "\[install"

   and

   apt search mysql | grep "\[install"

Unfortunately, before I was able to do the next step, I had to remove the various mariadb.service files, so that dpkg was able to remove the mariadb-server-10.3 package properly. Otherwise, it seems to be assuming there's a running service, and when it's unable to stop it (because the symlink is broken), it errors out.

I found mariadb.service in /etc/systemd/system and /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants

2. Force uninstall of all MariaDB and MySQL packages (server, client, libs) to clean the mess

   sudo dpkg --force depends --purge <package> <package> ...

For the "Step 4" of that post, I swapped the order of the commands to remove the unneeded packages first:

sudo apt autoremove
sudo apt-get --fix-broken install

And then I was able to reinstall per the normal

sudo apt install mariadb-server

Hope that helps.

Try this:

1. Purge mariadb

   sudo apt purge mariadb-*

   Remove all databases ('Yes' answer)

2. Purge mysql

   sudo apt purge mysql-*

   Remove all databases ('Yes' answer)

3. Remove mariadb repo from /etc/apt/sources.list

   Find something like this:

   deb [arch=amd64,arm64,ppc64el] bionic main

4. Remove folders:

   sudo rm -r /usr/share/mysql/
   sudo rm -r /etc/mysql/
   sudo rm -r /lib/systemd/system/mysql.service

5. Now you can try to install oracle mysql:

   sudo apt install mysql-server

You can completely uninstall mysql / mariadb as follow:

sudo apt-get purge mariadb-server mariadb-* mysql-*

The purge is identical to remove, except that packages are removed and purged (any configuration files are deleted too)