I encountered this problem while installing mysql. Since there was no answer here, I investigated. On my machine, with strace mysqld, this is the relevant result:
bind(10, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(3306), sin_addr=inet_addr("127.0.0.1")}, 16) = -1 EADDRNOTAVAIL (Cannot assign requested address) This is caused by my network setup being broken, in particular address 127.0.0.1 is not assigned to any of my network interfaces (in other words, interface lo is not up). This means the socket cannot bind to it, thus causing this error. To fix it, add to /etc/network/interfaces: auto lo iface lo inet loopback and reboot the computer, or run ifup lo After that, it should work. It did for me anyway. :-) -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org