Below are instructions for creating your own Debian repository. The instructions are based on http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/repository-howto/repository-howto.en.html

REPO_DIR={pick some location}
mkdir $REPO_DIR
mkdir $REPO_DIR/binary
mkdir $REPO_DIR/source
cp *.deb *.ddeb $REPO_DIR/binary
cd $REPO_DIR
dpkg-scanpackages binary  /dev/null | gzip -9c > binary/Packages.gz
dpkg-scansources  source  /dev/null | gzip -9c > source/Sources.gz

Using the Debian repository you just created

One needs to add a new file to the /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ directory. For instance a new file called mariadb.list

# sergey's MariaDB repository
#
deb file:///home/psergey/testrepo binary/
deb-src file:///home/psergey/testrepo source/

after which one can run

apt-get update  # Let apt learn about the new repository
apt-get install mariadb-server

and collect bugs :-).

"apt-get install" will spray output of scripts and servers all over /var/log. It is also possible to set DEBIAN_SCRIPT_DEBUG=1 to get some (not all) of it to stdout.

Cleaning up after failed installation

Run

dpkg --get-selections | grep mariadb
dpkg --get-selections | grep mysql

to see what is installed, and then

 dpkg --purge <packages>

until the former produces empty output. Note: after some failures, /etc/mysql and /var/lib/mysql are not cleaned and still need to be removed manually.