There is a default my.cnf that comes with mysql (4+5) that will make mysql run a bit quicker if you have 2+ gig of ram
cp -f /usr/share/mysql/my-large.cnf /etc/my.cnf
There is also my-huge.cnf, or my-medium.cnf depending on your hardware setup. Check the contents of these my*.cnf files for the one that's right for you.
If you've got mysql 4 (and not mysql 5), then you can use the following code in your /etc/my.cnf:
Referenced from the Forum
vi /etc/my.cnf [ENTER]
Press 'i' to enter insert mode, then paste:
[mysqld] local-infile=0 skip-locking query_cache_limit=1M query_cache_size=32M query_cache_type=1 max_connections=500 interactive_timeout=100 wait_timeout=100 connect_timeout=10 thread_cache_size=128 key_buffer=16M join_buffer=1M max_allowed_packet=16M table_cache=1024 record_buffer=1M sort_buffer_size=2M read_buffer_size=2M max_connect_errors=10 # Try number of CPU's*2 for thread_concurrency thread_concurrency=2 myisam_sort_buffer_size=64M server-id=1 [safe_mysqld] err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log open_files_limit=8192 [mysqldump] quick max_allowed_packet=16M [mysql] no-auto-rehash #safe-updates [isamchk] key_buffer=64M sort_buffer=64M read_buffer=16M write_buffer=16M [myisamchk] key_buffer=64M sort_buffer=64M read_buffer=16M write_buffer=16M [mysqlhotcopy] interactive-timeout
Press ctrl-c to exit insert mode. Then press shift-Z shift-Z to save and quit. Restart mysqld: Redhat:
/sbin/service mysqld restart
FreeBSD:
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysqld restart