Unable to connect to MySQL - SOLVED

[Plotinus]

Hi, everybody,
I am a newbie in everything and I've spent lots of time because I am not able to connect to mySQL despite of the readed posts and googling time.
I work with ubuntu 8.04 and xampp, I can connect with mysql via phpmyadmin, I can create tables, etc. I have a little php application that works fine. I reach this application by typing http://localhost/myApp/myApp.php (with no port number).
I've installed NetBeans 6.5, with no problem. I've created my first project.
But when I go to Services -> Databases, and try to connect to the server, I get an error message:
Unable to connect to the MySQL server:
org.netbeans.api.db.explorer.DatabaseException: org.netbeans.api.db.explorer.DatabaseException: com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException: Communications link failure.

Last packet sent to the server was 0 ms ago..

The server may not be running... etc etc

And when I edit the MySQL connection properties, I get:

Server Host Name: localhost
Server Port Number: 3306 (I think it's ok, when I connect to the application I never type the port number, but in the mysql config file stays this value).
Administrator User Name: root (usually I connect to phpmyadmin with this user)
Administrator Password: ***** (the same with I connect to phpmyadmin)


I have no idea of java (needed?) and cannot figure out what happens. Sure it must be a very silly thing...
Can anybody help me? Any suggestion or help will be strongly welcome.
Thanks in advance,
P



Added:
When I right-click on Services -> Databases -> Drivers -> mySQL and put in the parms of the connection, I get another error:

Unable to add connection. Cannot establish a connection to jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/myApp using com.mysql.jdbc.Driver (communications link failure).

Those parms are:
Data Input Mode: Field entry
Name: MySQL (connector/j driver)
host: localhost
port: 3306
database: mydatabase
user name: root
password: ***** same as above




Solution:
Thanks to the post in http://forums.netbeans.org/post-14735.html, I edited the /opt/lamm/etc/my.cnf file, and commented the line with "skip-networking".

[Futaleufu_John]

Check out the following thread. Note the last post's reference to the MySQL
variable skip-networking.

http://www.nabble.com/com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException%3A-Communications-link-failure-to20616473.html
http://www.nabble.com/com.mysql.jdbc.exceptions.jdbc4.CommunicationsException%3A-Communications-link-failure-to20616473.html

Plotinus wrote:

[Plotinus]

Thank you!
It was what I needed!
Finally the connection is working.