How to remove mySQL completely?

[Andrew Frazier]

I've had some problems setting up mySQL, PHP, Apache, phpMyAdmin on a Suse Linux 10 machine and want to remove mySQL completely so that I can re-install it and start over.

Initially I had everything set up right but phpMyAdmin warned me that I didn't have a root password set, so I set one. However, when I reloaded phpMyAdmin I couldn't connect as I got an error #1045, mySQL was expecting root to be "using password: NO".

After removing the password from the user table in the mysql db at the command line when I tried to get back in to phpMyAdmin I got the same error except it was now "using password: YES".

Back at the command line I could no longer even access the mysql db as root, and I hadn't got as far as creating other users yet.

I though that uninstalling would remove the databases and create a new one but it appears that it didn't so I still can't connect to mySQL to do anything.

My question, therefore, is how do I remove it completely from a Linux system so that I can make a clean install with fresh default databases; and, where are the configuration files kept so that I can make sure that when a password is set I can still connect to the system.