To reset your mysqld password just follow these instructions :

• Stop the mysql demon process using this command :

  •    sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop

• Start the mysqld demon process using the --skip-grant-tables option with this command

  •    sudo /usr/sbin/mysqld --skip-grant-tables --skip-networking &

Because you are not checking user privs at this point, it's safest to disable networking. In Dapper, /usr/bin/mysqld... did not work. However, mysqld --skip-grant-tables did.

• start the mysql client process using this command

  •    mysql -u root

• from the mysql prompt execute this command to be able to change any password

  •    FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

• Then reset/update your password

  •    SET PASSWORD FOR root@'localhost' = PASSWORD('password');

• If you have a mysql root account that can connect from everywhere, you should also do:

  •    UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD('newpwd') WHERE User='root';

• Alternate Method:

  •    USE mysql
       UPDATE user SET Password = PASSWORD('newpwd')
       WHERE Host = 'localhost' AND User = 'root';

• And if you have a root account that can access from everywhere:

  •    USE mysql
       UPDATE user SET Password = PASSWORD('newpwd')
       WHERE Host = '%' AND User = 'root';

For either method, once have received a message indicating a successful query (one or more rows affected), flush privileges:

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Then stop the mysqld process and relaunch it with the classical way:

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop
sudo /etc/init.d/mysql start