Help with Debian MySQL

[Trevor de Stigter]

I am a complete newbie to linux, but have managed to get Debian running on my toshiba 205CDS, which I wish to use to run a web server.  I have both Apache and PHP4 installed and running OK.  However I need to install MySQL for a couple of php scripts which I want to run.  No problem - I downloaded the deb package and it duly installed and configured, but when I try to start it with the mysql command I get:   ERROR 2002: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock'  (111)   investigation shows that the directory exists but it is empty.   Could someone please indicate what I need to do next?? Regards, Trevor de Stigter