mysqladmin won't work

[rfa at msumain.edu.ph]

First of all im running FreeBSD 4.8 and mysql-server-3.23.56

Im planning to install phpmyadmin and phpnuke on my webserver for content
and I forgot the root password for mysql and Im not the first maintainer
of this server so I have no idea what the password could be.

I was thinking to override the previous root password so I checked the
documentation for mysql and it said do this as root:

QUOTE:
5.5.6 Assigning Account Passwords
Passwords may be assigned from the command line by using the mysqladmin
command:
shell> mysqladmin -u user_name -h host_name password "newpwd"

The account for which this command resets the password is the one with a
user table record that matches user_name in the User column and the client
host from which you connect in the Host column.
ENDQUOTE

so i tried that and.....

#mysqladmin -u root -h localhost password "mysql"
mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Access denied for user: 'root at localhost' (Using password: NO)'

# mysqladmin -h localhost password
mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Access denied for user: 'root at localhost' (Using password: NO)'

I don't get it, whats happening?  Btw im using putty to ssh into the
server, could that be a cause?