I am trying to install  AbanteCart cart on yahoo web hosting.  Yahoo interfaces with MySQL through phpMyAdmin. I have created a database with a table name AbanteCart with all rights and privileges granted.  The version info is as follows
Database server
•   Server: mysql via TCP/IP
•   Server type: MySQL
•   Server version: 5.1.55 - Source distribution
•   Protocol version: 10
•   User: Mowattm1@localhost
•   Server charset: UTF-8 Unicode (utf8)
Web server
•   Apache
•   Database client version: libmysql - 5.1.55
•   PHP extension: mysql 
phpMyAdmin
•   Version information: 4.0.10.16l

When I call upon AbanteCart installation file index.phb  and enter my logon info, local host and database name. I keep getting this error
Name   Info
2::warning   mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Lost connection to MySQL server at 'reading initial communication packet', system error: 111 in /Custombuiltpc/AbanteCart/public_html/core/database/mysql.php on line 47


Sql query show variables like '%socket%';  results in     tmp/mysql5.1.55.10920.sock
I tried using this command
$host = 'localhost:/tmp/mysql.sock';
Where I substituted the socket value
$host = ‘localhost:/tmp/mysql5.1.55.10920.sock’;
But got a syntax error, tried $hostname, instead of $host and got same syntax error.
Also Did query on
SHOW VARIABLES WHERE Variable_name = 'hostname'
hostname    p8db9.geo.ne1.yahoo.com  for mysql database   
            p8db9.geo.ne1.yahoo.com   same for AbanteCart
When I entered the above as local host , I still got database connection and socket error.