root password / startup

[John]

Hi,

I'm using mysql-server-3.23.58-4 on a Linux (Fedora 1) machine,
and I'm new to databases/MySQL.

After reading the security section of the manual from
http://dev.mysql.com, I added passwords for the 'root' accounts.

However, now the startup script (/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld) fails.

I tried adding:

[mysql.server]
password=xxx

into /etc/my.cnf

but it did not help.

How do I set the password for the startup script ?

Thanks,
John.