MySQL stop/waiting issues; “can't connect … through socket”

So this was my first time putting up a LAMP stack on a Bodhi machine (previously experience with WAMP, and LAMP on 10.04); I got Apache going, and a Drupal install begun, then I go to create a new database and when I log in to phpmyadmin ... I get a 'cannot connect error'. Tracing this back, the issue began once I tried to get virtual hosts up and running in Apache; once that was done I started running into socket connection issues with mysql. Initially the problem looked like this: ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2) Using ls -lart /var/run/my* I get this: total 0 drwxr-xr-x 2 mysql root 40 Jan 31 11:56 . drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 740 Jan 31 12:21 ..` I ran touch /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock and set chown -R mysql /var/run/mysqld which allows for: total 0 drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 740 Jan 31 12:21 .. -rw-r--r-- 1 mysql root 0 Jan 31 13:58 mysqld.sock drwxr-xr-x 2 mysql root 60 Jan 31 13:58 . - So when I try to run mysql -u root -p I get one error - ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (13) (note it is no longer ERROR 2002...(2) but rather ERROR 2002...(13)) - If I try service mysql restart (or stop, start) I get another error - `start: Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.49" (uid=1000 pid=8407 comm="start mysql ") interface="com.ubuntu.Upstart0_6.Job" member="Start" error name="(unset)" requested_reply="0" destination="com.ubuntu.Upstart" (uid=0 pid=1 comm="/sbin/init") ` - When I run sudo service mysql restart I get `stop: Unknown instance: start: Job failed to start ` - When I run service mysql status I get "mysql stop/waiting" What can I do to diagnose the issues I am having with mysql? I may be overlooking an utterly simple mysql issue and would appreciate any feedback on what I've done so far. Also, being a Bodhi machine and most of the instruction/feedback being written for Ubuntu, I am unsure to what extent any Ubuntu instruction may not apply. In particular, am I running into a problem related to the difference between /etc/init.d/... and service ... ... commands? Or, perhaps, am I running into a difference between libraries of the two?