LP:452116 - MariaDB: mysql_install_db causes server segfault

I've tried installing MariaDB from
http://master.ourdelta.org/deb/dists/jaunty/mariadb-ourdelta/ on Ubuntu 9.04 amd64.
I got HTTP 404 errors on the first attempt, but not on the second.

The package asked me to change root password several times during the
installation. In all cases, I've just hit 'enter' as an indication that I do
not want to change it.

As a result, I got this:

Setting up mariadb-server-core-5.1 (5.1.38-ourdelta81) ...
Setting up mariadb-server-5.1 (5.1.38-ourdelta81) ...

• Stopping MariaDB database server mysqld [ OK ]
  Replacement succeeded for "/usr/sbin/mysqld".
• Starting MariaDB database server mysqld [ OK ]
• Checking for corrupt, not cleanly closed and upgrade needing tables.
  ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

Setting up libhtml-template-perl (2.9-1) ...
Setting up mariadb-server (5.1.38-ourdelta81) ...
Processing triggers for libc6 ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
root@pylon64:~#
root@pylon64:~# /etc/init.d/mysql status
/usr/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)'

• 
  root@pylon64:~# /etc/init.d/mysql start
• Starting MariaDB database server mysqld [ OK ]
  root@pylon64:~#

Further experimentation showed that "/etc/init.d/mysql start" works, while
restart and stop commands do not because of permission errors.

/etc/mysql/debian.cnf contains the following:

[client]
host = localhost
user = debian-sys-maint
password = G4dQ6VLVrD81ilks
socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
[mysql_upgrade]
host = localhost
user = debian-sys-maint
password = G4dQ6VLVrD81ilks
socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
basedir = /usr

This user/password pair is not accepted by the server. I had to edit
/etc/my.cnf and put there 'skip-grant-tables' so that I could log in.

After logging in, I can see that mysql.user table is empty.

It looks like installer script wasn't successful in adding the
debian-stys-maint user?