MySQL on Debian is extremely annoying, especially if trying to setup a slave DB. Debian just keeps trying to be too clever and fucks everything up.

First off, it gets the hostname of log files wrong (this is partly MySQL's fault here).

Then it changes its maintenance password on upgrade so that it can't log in anymore.

Thirdly rebooting a slave machine just screws up for reasons outside of those first two. Not to mention that the first setup was a problem as well (also due to the maintenance password nonsense).