CentOS

I installed mysql using yum install
For example:
yum install mysql
yum install mysql-server

When I run the command:
mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

I get:
[1] 3377
[root@hydro bin]# Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
STOPPING server from pid file /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
050630 16:04:01 mysqld ended

The mysqld starts and then immediately stops.
My err log says:
050630 14:10:38 mysqld started
050630 14:10:39 mysqld ended

Any help is appreciated.

try:

/etc/init.d/mysqld start

this is the command that gets run:

/usr/bin/mysqld_safe --defaults-file=/etc/my.cnf --pid-file="$mypidfile" >/dev/null 2>&1 &