Xampp: another mysql daemon is already running

XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl.

I used XAMPP a lot without any issues. However, this weekend I got my hands into Ruby (on Rails). I installed a lot of stuff and went through a lot of configurations and then MySQL on XAMPP stopped working.

The issue was when I start XAMPP using the command
sudo /opt/lampp/lampp start

I got the following output:

Starting XAMPP for Linux 1.5.3a...
XAMPP: Starting Apache with SSL (and PHP5)...
XAMPP: Another MySQL daemon is already running.
XAMPP: Starting ProFTPD...
XAMPP for Linux started.

The Mysql port was already in use by some other application because of which it was not available for xampp. XAMPP comes packaged with it's own MySQL server and I already had another one (after my Ruby on Rails work) taking up the port. This prevents you from using anything which uses Mysql like phpMyadmin or any CMS on your server.

A workaround this wold be typing the following command in your terminal.

sudo /etc/init.d/mysql stop

This stops the Mysql daemon because of which the port is now available for xampp. Start xampp again and you are good to go.

However, you need to start/stop the mysql instance using the port depending on which application you need to use. It would be brilliant if there was a way to have XAMPP-MySQL not conflict with MySQL instance that you use for any other application say Ruby.