Problems with default SQL installation

I installed CentOS (a Red Hat Enterprise 3 clone) and I used the default mySQL installation with everything for it installed. I try to connect to it through phpmyadmin and I get the error

#2002 - Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)

I was reading a walkthrough online and it told me to start the daemon with

/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld start

but it didn't I did a search and found mysqld and mysqladmin are not on the system. Is there something I'm missing? I would assume a default install wouldn't be missing any parts

A default install wouldn't be missing any core parts, but it may well be missing add-ons, and I'd MySQL certainly belongs in that category. Check with "rpm -qa | grep -i mysql" to see if any MySQL packages are installed.

I got

mysql-devel-3.23.58-1
qt-MySQL-3.1.2-13.4
mysql-3.23.58-1
perl-DBD-MySQL-2.1021-3
php-mysql-4.3.2-13.ent
mysql-bench-3.23.58-1
mod_auth_mysql-20030510-1.ent
libdbi-dbd-mysql-0.6.5-5
MySQL-python-0.9.1-6

It seems to me that you need to install the mysql-server package as well. It should be on your installation CDs.

Yeah I found that out in another post. This distro prides itself to being a relica of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 and Red Hat doesn't come with the server either

RedHat and MySQL have been having licensing quarrels lately. Go to mysql.com , and download the 4.0.22 i386 RPMs. They will install fine. You will need -server -devel -client -shared-compat . Once you do this you can run:

/sbin/service mysqld restart (or alternately)
/sbin/service mysql restart

Then, to ensure it comes up at boot time:

/sbin/chkconfig mysqld on (or alternately)
/sbin/chkconfig mysql on

the mysql/mysqld difference is dependant on what version you have.

Best,

Samuel