I am using Fedora Core and would like to install Mysql. My first question is which installation method is easier: rpm OR binary codes (tar ball)?

Since I'm not familiar with rpm, I tried the source from this website: http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/5.0.html#downloads
and picked the third one: Linux (non RPM packages).

From there, I wasn't sure which one to download: Linux (x86, glibc-2.2, "standard" is static) or Linux (x86) ?
Anyway, I downloaded the first one and followed the step-by-step instuction here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/...ng-binary.html But I don't understand why there is no configuration, make and make install etc.

After I finished these steps, I typed "mysql -u root -p" and then the password, I got an error message:
"Can't connect to local Mysql Server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock'

Please advise or direct me a good and updated instruction link for how to install mysql5.0 on Fedora Core.
Thanks so much!

Well, randomly selecting things and installing them sounds "bad" but it (at least from your description) appears to have worked out. That error means you don't have mysqld running. You can start it by running it directly (assuming /usr/bin) /usr/bin/mysqld But typically you start it by using your distros startup scripts (Fedora would be something like service mysql start). This assumes you used your distro to install it though, which you didn't in this case. I'd suggest trying to undo what you have, and using yum (yumex if you prefer gui) to get MySQL installed from Fedora's repos.

Good luck!

Cool

But I have the following problems with mysql:
1. when I use:
/sbin/service mysql start
I got error message: "mysql: unrecognized service"

2. when I use:
/usr/local/mysql-5.0.37-linyx-i686/bin/mysql
I got error message "Can't connect to local Mysql server through socket .."

3. by "undo what I did", do you mean remove the whole directory of mysql?

4. Regarding to yum, my understanding is yum is automatically install rpm package, is that right? Could you give me some more specific instruction? (like which packages to install by yum)

Thanks!