I've been trying to download Snort w/a mysql database on my Ubuntu 11.10 server,
but keep running into issues. (I'm a relatively new Linux user, btw...)

This server previously had Snort w/mysql on it, but I wanted to update it.
However, the upgrades weren't working so I deleted everything that had to do with snort or mysql.

Since then I have done:
$ apt-get install snort
$ apt-get install snort-mysql
$ apt-get install snort-rules-default
$ apt-get install mysql-server
$ apt-get install mysql-client-core-5.1 mysql-cluster-client-5.1

when I try to run $ mysql - I get:

Error 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld.sock' (2)

Here's what I've tried and the resulting messages:

$ /etc/init.d/mysqld start
-bash: /etc/init.d/mysqld: No such file or directory
$ service mysqld start
mysqld: unrecognized service

any suggestions?

did you actually look in /etc/init.d to see what the service is called? Google says it's just called "mysql" not "mysqld"

You're right, in /etc/init.d there's no mysqld

So I tried to start mysql and got the same Error 2002 as above. er edit: the Error should have the socket as /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock/

and I just checked /var/run/mysqld and it's empty...?

(edited for spell check >.<)

I realized that I didn't actually have snort-mysql installed (I must've uninstalled it at some point...)
But this is what happens when I try to install it:

emoran@spot:/usr/share/doc$ sudo apt-get install snort-mysql
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
snort-mysql is already the newest version.
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
linux-headers-3.0.0-21-generic-pae linux-headers-3.0.0-21
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Setting up mysql-server-5.1 (5.1.63-0ubuntu0.11.10.1) ...
start: Job failed to start
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.1 (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.1; however:
Package mysql-server-5.1 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
Errors were encountered while processing:
mysql-server-5.1
mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

*note, I know it says that there's nothing to be installed, b/c right before this I used the same command to install it but ran into other issues with setting up mysql-server-5.1, since I had mysqld_safe and mysqld running...but I fixed that!

Any ideas?