i am experiencing the exact same issue, initial login does not work.
mysql 5.0.45
php 5.1.6
on centos5
configuration is basically identical, except port is null because its using the socket.
edit:
this is also showing up in apaches error_log
[Thu Sep 04 10:18:53 2008] [notice] Apache/2.2.3 (CentOS) configured -- resuming normal operations
[Thu Sep 04 10:18:55 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/css, referer: http://XXXX/tracmor/login.php
[Thu Sep 04 10:18:55 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/js, referer: http://XXXX/tracmor/login.php
[Thu Sep 04 10:18:55 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/images, referer: http://XXXXX/tracmor/login.php
[Thu Sep 04 10:18:55 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/images, referer: http://XXXX/tracmor/login.php
[Thu Sep 04 10:18:55 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/images, referer: http://XXXX/tracmor/login.php
[Thu Sep 04 10:32:44 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/images, referer: http://XXXX/tracmor/login.php
[Thu Sep 04 10:32:44 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/images, referer: http://XXXX/tracmor/login.php
[Thu Sep 04 10:32:44 2008] [error] [client XXXX] File does not exist: /var/www/html/images, referer: http://XXXX/tracmor/login.php
ive set the docroot variable properly in configuration.inc.php too. it looks like the login page somewhere is ignoring the document root variable set in the configuration file.
do i have to change the other configuration files as well?