I tried multiple variations but the step always fails and looking at /var/log/syslog and /var/log/mysql/error.log I don't understand why.
# Add 'set -x' to /var/lib/dpkg/info/mariadb-server-10.1.postinst $ apt-get install -f ... + password_column_fix_query='USE mysql; SET sql_log_bin=0; ALTER TABLE user CHANGE Password Password char(41) character set latin1 collate latin1_bin DEFAULT '\'''\'' NOT NULL;' + logger -p daemon.err -t mysqld_safe -i + /usr/sbin/mysqld --bootstrap --user=mysql --disable-log-bin --skip-grant-tables --default-storage-engine=myisam + echo 'USE mysql; SET sql_log_bin=0; ALTER TABLE user CHANGE Password Password char(41) character set latin1 collate latin1_bin DEFAULT '\'''\'' NOT NULL;' + /usr/sbin/mysqld --bootstrap --user=mysql --disable-log-bin --skip-grant-tables --default-storage-engine=myisam + /usr/bin/mysql_tzinfo_to_sql /usr/share/zoneinfo 2017-01-18 21:25:49 140333538371456 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld (mysqld 10.1.21-MariaDB-1~zesty1~1484766332.4c6cf54) starting as process 10129 ... dpkg: error processing package mariadb-server-10.1 (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mariadb-server: mariadb-server depends on mariadb-server-10.1 (>= 10.1.21-1~zesty1~1484766332.4c6cf54); however: Package mariadb-server-10.1 is not configured yet. dpkg: error processing package mariadb-server (--configure): dependency problems - leaving unconfigured No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure. Errors were encountered while processing: mariadb-server-10.1 mariadb-server E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)