Unable to locate package mysql-server

Question

I installed ubuntu 16.04, after that when i try to install mysql it shows error as

$ sudo apt-get update
[sudo] password for mcerc: 
Reading package lists... Done
mcerc@mcerc-ThinkCentre-M72e:~$ sudo apt-get install mysql
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package mysql
mcerc@mcerc-ThinkCentre-M72e:~$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package mysql-server
mcerc@mcerc-ThinkCentre-M72e:~$ ^C
mcerc@mcerc-ThinkCentre-M72e:~$ 

Answer 1

Whenever u install fresh Ubuntu , you need to update and upgrade the system to install from ubuntu repositories.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Now install anything

 sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Answer 2

• First, goto Ubuntu Software and in the menu there will be the option Ubuntu Software. Select it.
• There, you will Softwares and Updates. Select it. Check if all the official repositories (under the option Ubuntu Software) are checked. If not then check them.
• Else use the following command for installing mysql-server sudo apt install mysql-server-5.7. This should work.

UPDATE: Ubuntu Software tab is moved to Software & Update, a separate application in Ubuntu 18.04

Answer 3

Your problem : mysql-server maybe was installed once and the settings in your machine might be saved somewhere . Remove it completely with .

Uninstall mysql-server first:

sudo apt-get remove --purge mysql-server 

install it again. Run this command:

sudo apt-get install mysql-server

This also help to fix broken packages, so if these commands above failed tried to fix packages first and then remove and install the mysql-server:

sudo apt-get -f install

Answer 4

Thank you for this. I had an issue installing openssh-server on my Ubuntu 16. I tried above solution and it installs openssh-server successfully. Here is what I tries:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get remove --purge openssh-server 
sudo apt-get install openssh-server 
sudo apt-get -f install

Hope this will help someone.

Answer 5

The other answers should work normally, but for me something was circularly misconfigured somehow and sudo apt purge mysql* -y just gave me

E: Unable to locate package mysql-apt-config_0.8.9-1_all.deb

but also sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
just gave me

dpkg: error processing package mysql-server-8.0 (--configure):
installed mysql-server-8.0 package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 127
Errors were encountered while processing:
mysql-server-8.0
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So I thought if apt can't handle it on it's own, I'll bring on the big guy: dpkg

First I queried all packages containing mysql with

sudo dpkg-query -l | less | grep mysql

then I purged all of them one by one like

sudo dpkg --purge mysql-common
sudo dpkg --purge mysql-server-8.0
sudo dpkg --purge mysql-server-core-8.0
...

Then I ran all the commands suggested here + sudo apt autoremove, so after that I could reinstall it just like normal.

Hope this will help someone.