“error establishing a database connection” on MySQL 4.1

I am sure my wpconfig file is good and everything but when i try to “localhost/wp-admin/install.php” i get the erron “error establishing a database connection”. i am running MySQL 4.1.22 standard on mac os x 10.4. I have heard the password hash is not the same and to use some sort of unix command like,

mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR -> ‘root’@’localhost’ = OLD_PASSWORD(‘password’);

but when ever i do i get the following error message:

ERROR 1064 (42000): You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘-> ‘root’@’localhost’ = OLD_PASSWORD(‘password’)’ at line 1

What paramaters do i have to change to what? is there somewhere i can just download the older version of MySQL, i heard it works fine.

Thanks, alex