Install and Configure MariaDB on Ubuntu

I. Installation

In your terminal execute the following commands:

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0xF1656F24C74CD1D8
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64] http://mirror.zol.co.zw/mariadb/repo/10.3/ubuntu bionic main'
sudo apt update
sudo apt -y install mariadb-server mariadb-client

You should be prompted to set your password.

Try myql -u root -p, if it does not work we need to configure the root user.

II. Configuration
Go back to your terminal and execute the following commands:

sudo mysql -u root
SELECT User,Host FROM mysql.user; # notice that root is assigned to localhost not %
DROP USER 'root'@'localhost';
CREATE USER 'root'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'secret';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'root'@'%' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Exit mysql and connect without using sudo.

In case something goes wrong. Here's how you can uninstall MariaDB

apt-get remove --purge mariadb-server mariadb-client 
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client
sudo apt-get --purge remove "mysql*"
sudo rm -rf /etc/mysql

Open /etc/apt/sources.list and remove all instances of MariaDB.

Then finally run sudo apt update.