MYSQL on SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server Distribution not working

[Jim Williams]

I am not able to get MYSQL running on Suse Linux Enterprise Server.

I tried stopping with the command mysqld and it reported, "Shtudown
Complete." Then when I tried to restart it with the command, "mysqld
–user=root" I get the response "mysql.host" doesn't exist. If I try
"mysqld – user=mysql", I get numerous errors.

I installed Suse Linux Enterprise Server 8 from CDROM and included all
options. I saw the MYSQL is part of the distribution so I assumed it
was set up properly. Apparently, that is not the case. I tried to
uninstall just the MYSQL and downloaded the MYSQL from the MYSQL web
site and tried to reinstall it according to the documentation but
found the SUSE Linux uninstall did not uninstall everything because I
kept getting error messages about conflicts between the MYSQL version
leftover stuff from the SUSE distribution and the newer version I
donwloded from the MYSQL site. I tried to manually delete everyting I
could but to no avail.

I gave up and reinstalled the whole SUSE Linux distribution. The very
first thing I did after the installation was complete was to try to
issue a mysql command as root and got the following:
"ERROR 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket
'/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock' (2)"

Obviously, something is not quite right on my SUSE Linux distribution.

Can anyone please advise me what I need to do to be able to use MYSQL
on the Suse Linux Distribtuion.