>> P.S., do check first if mysql is running! Not all of us start it at boot!
PG> I have heard that request before, but I don't really see what you want PG> to gain with that knowledge that isn't already part of the current PG> checking and error handling. Could you elaborate on how you envision PG> that this would help? E.g. what is the use case and expected behavior. All I know is: Since I only use mysql once a month or so, I via systemd, disabled it from starting at boot. Now when I do my daily aptitude full-upgrade, maybe once every few years some package (phpmyadmin in this case) needs to do some mysql operations to upgrade itself. Well that package should not assume all users are running mysql all the time, and only find out too late in its upgrade procedure, causing things to get stuck in an non-ideal state, causing much work... Instead it should first check, and if it finds mysql not running it should say "Mysql is not running. Please start it and hit RET, or type "a" to abort." etc.
