Reconfigure my MySQL server for utf8 support

[Dave M G]

Ubuntu Users,

    I installed MySQL on my Ubuntu system via Synaptic. In other words, 
I used a GUI point and click interface, and saw nothing of configuration 
options.

    Now, I find that what I want to do is change all the system 
variables related to encoding and collation to use utf8.

    I have gained some advice from the MySQL mailing list, and the manual:
    http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/charset-server.html

    Apparently, one can reconfigure MySQL using ./configure or something 
like that to rebuild (?) the server so that it has utf8 as the default 
encoding.

    But, my stumbling block is that the advice I've got on the MySQL 
mailing list and in the manual assumes that one is comiling from source 
and not simply obtaining from a repository. There is also an assumption 
of knowledge about what is being configured and where to run the commands.

    I am not so knowledgeable. I'm a newbie who is in over my head.

    Since I got my MySQL through Synaptic and the Ubuntu repositories, I 
have no idea where or how to run configuration commands. All I know is 
that I want *all* the following variables to be set *permanently* to utf-8.

    Can someone give me a beginners rundown on how to do this?

    These are the relevant variables:

Variable        Session value        Global value
character set client        utf8       latin1
character set connection     utf8     latin1
character set database     latin1     latin1
character set results     utf8     latin1
character set server     latin1     latin1
character set system     utf8     utf8
collation connection     utf8_general_ci     latin1_swedish_ci
collation database     latin1_swedish_ci     latin1_swedish_ci
collation server     latin1_swedish_ci     latin1_swedish_ci

    Any advice would be much appreciated.

    Thank you.

--
Dave M G