Cannot connect to MySQL (newbie)

[Graham Cossey]

I'm hoping someone can help with a problem I am having connecting to my
local MySQL installation.

I am running FC2 and MySQL 4.0.20.

When I attempt to connect to MySQL I get the following message:

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

/etc/my.cnf
-----------
[mysqld]
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

[mysql.server]
user=mysql
basedir=/var/lib

[safe-mysqld]
err-log=/var/log/mysql.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysql.pid
-------------

Looking at the running services (using the GUI tool via System settings >
Services) mysql is reporting the following in the status pane: "Usage:
/etc/init.d/mysql start|stop|restart".

Let me know what further details would be useful and I will attempt to post
them.

Many thanks

Graham.