LP:674413 - When installing 5.2 from debian packages, debian-sys-maint user is misconfigured

When installing mariadb 5.2 from downloaded .deb packages on debian lenny, there's a few problems i run into. I'm not sure which causes what, but here's a small list. Terminal output is attached.

• There's a message about debian-sys-maint access denied.
• There's a message that Innodb is disabled, yet it shows up in a show engines statement.
• the default config file contains options that generate warnings on server start
• The server won't properly shutdown.