Verifying MySQL Installation:
After MySQL has been successfully installed, the base tables have been initialized, and the server has been started, you can verify that all is working as it should via some simple tests.
Use the mysqladmin Utility to Obtain Server Status:
Use mysqladmin binary to check server version. This binary would be available in /usr/bin on linux and in C:\mysql\bin on windows.
[root@host]# mysqladmin --version
It will produce following result on Linux. It may vary depending on your installation:
mysqladmin Ver 8.23 Distrib 5.0.9-0, for redhat-linux-gnu on i386
If you do not get such message then there may be some problem in your installation and you would need some help to fix it.