¿Como inicio servicio MySQL?

Hola!!! tengo problemas al instalar mysql.... él instala, pero al parecer me deja problemas con el socket, no me deja conectar, instalo bien el php y phpmyadmin y apache, pero no he podido configurar el mysql... si ejecuto service mysqld se lanza el mensaje de OK pero no me deja inicializar root ni ponerle contraseña.... el mensaje que aparece después que lo instalo es el siguiente:

[root@localhost alfredo]# urpmi mysql

instalando mysql-5.1.34-2mdv2009.1.i586.rpm desde /var/cache/urpmi/rpms
Preparando... ##########################################
1/1: mysql ##########################################
chown: no se puede acceder a «/var/log/mysqld»: No existe el fichero o el directorio
Warning: netfs is needed by mysqld in runlevel 2
Warning: netfs is needed by mysqld in runlevel 2
Warning: netfs is needed by mysqld in runlevel 2
Warning: netfs is needed by mysqld in runlevel 2
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Más información sobre el paquete mysql-5.1.34-2mdv2009.1.i586

The initscript used to start mysql has been reverted to use the one shipped
by MySQL AB. This means the following changes:

* The MYSQLD_OPTIONS="--skip-networking" option in the /etc/sysconfig/mysqld
file has been removed, this is now set in the /etc/my.cnf file.

* The MySQL Instance Manager is used by default, set use_mysqld_safe="1" in
the /etc/sysconfig/mysqld file to use the old mysqld_safe script.

* The generation of the initial system mysql database is now done when mysql
is started from the initscript and only if the /var/lib/mysql/mysql
directory is empty (mysql_install_db). Previousely this was quite hidden and
silently done at (rpm) install time. As a consequence to this change you may
have to perform some manual tasks to upgrade the mysql system database and
such. So, doing something like this might help you:

/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld stop
TMPDIR=/var/tmp mysql_install_db
mysql_upgrade

The extra MySQL-NDB server package has been merged into the MySQL-Max package
and ndb related pieces has been split into different sub packages as done by
MySQL AB. The MySQL libraries and the MySQL-common sub package uses the
MySQL-Max build so that no functionality required by for example the NDB
parts are lost.

The MySQL-common package now ships with a default /etc/my.cnf file that is
based on the my-medium.cnf file that comes with the source code.

To connect to the Instance Manager you need to pass the correct command line
options like in the following examples:

* mysql -u root --password=my_password --port=2273 --protocol=TCP
* mysql -u root --password=my_password --socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysqlmanager.sock

Please note you also need to add a user in the /etc/mysqlmanager.passwd fileand
make sure the file is owned by the user under which the Instance Manager service
is running under.
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trato de hacer lo que recomienda pero me da otros mensajes de error....