After trying to Google and answer to my problem, it seems that everyone has problems running mysql via php with Xitami.
That's not correct. I ran Xitami for several years without any problems (once installed correctly). I changed to XAMPP purely because I needed to exactly copy a full online server setup. Where Xitami fall down is on their install info. Basically, you must install Xitami (the web server) before you install MySQL, PHP, phpMyAdmin etc. As long as you do that you should be fine.

Vger