Trying to do a new install. Getting the following error from setup.php

Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock'

How can I fix this?

You should contact your host about this. Chances are that they will be able to tell you what's wrong, how to fix it, or they will fix it for you. Probably it's an error in configuration for MySQL.

It's on my local Linux host.

ok, restarted mysql with mysqld instead of mysqld_safe and it works now.