clean leopard mysql install issues

[David Herren]

A bit of background. On Friday, the sysadmin here at the school where  
I work decided to move the web server (G5 dual). I don't know if he  
did anything untoward (he knows very little of Macs), but when he  
powered it on in it's new location, the hard drive was dead.

We bought a couple of new drives which I installed and formatted and  
then installed 10.5.1. The basic idea is I'm going to reload the  
datbases (which have been dumped every night to an external drive and  
the other file-type data is rsynced daily--data is safe)

I am the web master by default---this is a high school and if you  
admit to knowing anything at all about a computer, however little, you  
are declared the expert and assigned responsibilities.


I have read Marc Liyanage's site. I have looked at the mysql site. I  
have read everything I can find on the net, but no joy. I cannot get  
mysql to work on Leopard. It's not a mysql.sock issue--I've taken care  
of that. Mysql runs at the command line with no user and no password.  
I can connect to it using CocoaMySQL

- Clean Leopard install. (not an upgrade--a clean install to formatted  
drive, not residual data)
- Downloaded the 4.1.22 PPC installer from mysql.
- The install works, I am able to userless and password-less get a  
mysql command line.

However, what I have always known to do in the past appears not to  
work any longer. when I issue the

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root password myNewPasswordHere

command, I get no error, but I cannot log in as root then using that  
password--I get access denied.

Sitting at the console, logged in, I can play with the test database  
(though I've deleted it since that's among the first things I always  
do on a new install). I cannot create any new database.

Logged in to mysql with no password, I cannot GRANT anything.

I have blown away the mysql install several times and re-installed  
with virtually the same result.

Any suggestions from anyone? Has anyone actually installed mysql on a  
clean leopard (it's seems excessive to me to compile my own version  
per the Hivelogic site, but I've looked through that information  
fairly closely...)

When I attempt to run

sudo ./bin/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
I get an error...there is not binary mysql_install_db

/david

--
david herren - shoreham, vt us na terra solsys orionarm

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time  
to reform.  -Mark Twain