Stavo affrontando lo stesso problema quando usavo mariaDB con phpmyadmin (Ubuntu 16.04LTS).
Prerequisiti:
1) Installa MariaDB
sudo apt-get -y install mariadb-server mariadb-client
sudo mysql_secure_installation (answer to some interactive questions):
Enter current password for root (enter for none): <enter>
Set root password: n
Remove anonymous users: n
Disallow root login remotely: n
Remove test database and access to it: n
Reload privilege tables now: Y
Se si desidera disinstallare mariaDB:
sudo apt-get purge mysql-server mysql-client mysql-common mysql-server-core-5.5 mysql-client-core-5.5
sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql /var/lib/mysql
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
2) Installa phpmyadmin
sudo apt-get -y install phpmyadmin (and answer some interactive questions)
Configuring phpmyadmin:
Web server to reconfigure automatically: apache2
Configure database for phpmyadmin with dbconfig-common: Yes
MySQL application password for phpmyadmin: <blank>
3) In apache2, crea un collegamento simbolico a phpmyadmin
sudo ln -s /etc/phpmyadmin/apache.conf /etc/apache2/conf-available/phpmyadmin.conf
sudo a2enconf phpmyadmin.conf
sudo service apache2 restart
Ok, ora, se segui le istruzioni di Rael, sarai in grado di accedere phpmyadmin, ma, almeno per me, non sono stato in grado di creare nuovi database, come è apparso un messaggio rosso: No privileges(o qualche messaggio simile)
La correzione era riconfigurando phpmyadmin e rispondendo ad alcune domande interattive.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure phpmyadmin
<Ok>
Reinstall database for phpmyadmin: <Yes>
Connection method for MySQL database server for phpmyadmin: TCP/IP
Host name of the MySQL database server for phpmyadmin: localhost
Port number for the MySQL service: 3306
MySQL database name for phpmyadmin: phpmyadmin
<Ok>
MySQL username for phpmyadmin: root
MySQL application password for phpmyadmin: pass # OR ANY PASSWORD YOU WANT
Password confirmation: pass
Name of the database's administrative user: root
Web server to reconfigure automatically: apache2
An error occurred while installing the database: ignore
Ora se provi a connetterti a phpmyadmin ( localhost/phpmyadmin) usando
username: root
password: pass
sarai in grado di creare database.