MariaDB installation - dependancy problems and failed to start service

Debian 8. Moving from MySql to MariaDB. Have tried the following and iterations of it.

sudo apt-get install software-properties-common
sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xcbcb082a1bb943db
sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,i386,ppc64el] http://sfo1.mirrors.digitalocean.com/mariadb/repo/10.2/debian jessie main'

apt-get install mariadb-server mariadb-client

This leads to the following:

Setting up mariadb-server-core-10.2 (10.2.6+maria~jessie) ...
Setting up mariadb-server-10.2 (10.2.6+maria~jessie) ...
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Warning] Ignoring user change to 'mysql' because the user was set to 'root' earlier on the command line

2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld (mysqld 10.2.6-MariaDB-10.2.6+maria~jessie) starting as process 12240 ...
/usr/sbin/mysqld: Can't change to run as user 'dressify'.  Please check that the user exists!
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Uses event mutexes
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.8
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Using Linux native AIO
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Number of pools: 1
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Using SSE2 crc32 instructions
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, total size = 128M, instances = 1, chunk size = 128M
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140033739474688 [Note] InnoDB: page_cleaner coordinator priority: -20
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Highest supported file format is Barracuda.
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: 128 out of 128 rollback segments are active.
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Creating shared tablespace for temporary tables
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Setting file './ibtmp1' size to 12 MB. Physically writing the file full; Please wait ...
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: File './ibtmp1' size is now 12 MB.
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: Waiting for purge to start
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] InnoDB: 5.7.14 started; log sequence number 136877173
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140033382151936 [Note] InnoDB: Loading buffer pool(s) from /var/lib/mysql/ib_buffer_pool
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140033382151936 [Note] InnoDB: Buffer pool(s) load completed at 170707  0:47:00
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [Note] Plugin 'FEEDBACK' is disabled.
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: unknown variable 'password=xSdjrcKrwIByHu9l2w'
2017-07-07  0:47:00 140034277914496 [ERROR] Aborting

Job for mariadb.service failed. See 'systemctl status mariadb.service' and 'journalctl -xn' for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package mariadb-server-10.2 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up libmysqlclient18 (10.2.6+maria~jessie) ...
Setting up libdbd-mysql-perl (4.028-2+deb8u2) ...
Setting up mariadb-client (10.2.6+maria~jessie) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mariadb-server:
 mariadb-server depends on mariadb-server-10.2 (>= 10.2.6+maria~jessie); however:
  Package mariadb-server-10.2 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package mariadb-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u10) ...

If I do not enter a password for the user (leave it blank), then the the error changes to:

Setting up mariadb-server-10.2 (10.2.6+maria~jessie) ...
Job for mariadb.service failed. See 'systemctl status mariadb.service' and 'journalctl -xn' for details.
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing package mariadb-server-10.2 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up libmysqlclient18 (10.2.6+maria~jessie) ...
Setting up libdbd-mysql-perl (4.028-2+deb8u2) ...
Setting up mariadb-client (10.2.6+maria~jessie) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mariadb-server:
 mariadb-server depends on mariadb-server-10.2 (>= 10.2.6+maria~jessie); however:
  Package mariadb-server-10.2 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package mariadb-server (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u10) ...

Please help, been trying to get it working for a few hours now.