Hi, I'm running Debian sid (unstable).

I did a fresh install of the mysql-server package via aptitude, the installation went fine. I noticed that there was no /etc/mysq/my.cnf file, so I copied the /usr/share/doc/mysql-server-5.0/examples/my-small.cnf and chmod 644 just in case.
I did not set a password when the configuration dialog appeared in aptitude.

Then I try running 'mysql -u root' and I get the following error:
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)

Just to be sure, I did a ping on localhost and it correctly returned 127.0.0.1.

I also tried creating the file ~/.my.cnf but it didn't work also:
[client]
user = root
[mysqladmin]
user = root

I then tried purging the package mysql-server in aptitude, choosen to remove all databases in the configuration dialog, and then reinstalled with a password set. 'mysql -u root -p', typed the password correctly, and I got the same error:
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES)

I tried it several times, but I got no other result than that. I tried to dmesg but got nothing about mysql. Also tried to cat /var/log/mysql.err and /var/log/mysql.log but they are 0 bytes in size. There are also no files inside /var/log/mysql/.

I cheched if the process is running with 'ps -ef | grep -i mysql' and got:
root 13887 1 0 02:25 ? 00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
mysql 13909 13887 0 02:25 ? 00:00:00 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/localhost.pid --skip-external-locking --port=3306 --socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
root 13911 13887 0 02:25 ? 00:00:00 logger -p daemon.err -t mysqld_safe -i -t mysqld

Finally, I tried 'strace mysql -u root' just to be sure, and I noticed that the socket is connecting and there is a response from the server about access denied for the root user, so I think this is not a 'process isn't running', '/etc/hosts is not properly configured', 'firewall is blocking' or 'socket isn't connecting' issue:
...
socket(PF_FILE, SOCK_STREAM, 0) = 3
...
connect(3, {sa_family=AF_FILE, path="/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock"}, 110) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_RCVTIMEO, "\2003\341\1\0\0\0\0", 8) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_SNDTIMEO, "\2003\341\1\0\0\0\0", 8) = 0
setsockopt(3, SOL_IP, IP_TOS, [8], 4) = -1 EOPNOTSUPP (Operation not supported)
setsockopt(3, SOL_SOCKET, SO_KEEPALIVE, [1], 4) = 0
read(3, "7\0\0\0\n5.0.51a-3\0\30\0\0\0xD&3i;*\\\0,\242\10\2"..., 16384) = 59
...
write(3, "&\0\0\1\205\246\3\0\0\0\0\1\10\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0\0"..., 42) = 42
read(3, "G\0\0\2\377\25\4#28000Access denied for u"..., 16384) = 75
shutdown(3, 2 /* send and receive */) = 0
close(3) = 0

I searched a lot on google and on several forums, including this one. Most people were having problems with missing password parameter 'mysql -u root -p', messing with the 'debian-sys-maint' user or misconfigured '/etc/hosts', but this is not my case.

I'm really clueless about that. Can anyone help me out?

Thanks,

Marcelo Juchem

Did you try

mysql -u root mysql

?

whhen you were installing it did it ask you to set the root password if not then you dont need a password to get in try
mysql -u root or
mysql -u root -p then no password just hit enter when it prompts you for a password

Yes, I tried every kind of password/passwordless authentication. Also tried with and without specifying the database as mysql.
Dpkg asks me if I wanna setup a password for mysql root after the installation, I tried inserting a password there and a passwordless configuration also.
Actually, I already did a good search on google about that, so every commom solution was already tried. I'm really clueless on this one.