Re: [gentoo-server] mysql start fails / but there are processes after start

[Kirktis]

You are missing a setting in your mysql configuration. Since you have compiled in support for InnoDB, you must either completely configure it, or turn it off. If you do not wish/need to use it, then skip-innodb is the correct choice.

If you wish to use InnoDB, you must set a default path for it (even when specifying file per table, which you aren't). The default path is set via the innodb_data_file_path variable, something similar to the following would suffice:

innodb_data_file_path = ibdata1:10M:autoextend:max:128M

For more information on InnoDB, please see the MySQL manual:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/innodb-configuration.html