Problem with phpMyAdmin

[JimC]

Please excuse the ignorance of a noobie.
I downloaded and installed XAMPP on my SuSE Linux system. I checked out the samples to be sure that it worked; they all did. CD Collection, Phone Book, and phpMyAdmin all accessed MySQL successfully.
I took the suggestion to tighten up security. I put in a password for everything. When I went back to run the samples, the three above didn't work because php couldn't make the connection to MySQL. I found .php files for CD Collection and Phone Book, and fixed the connection statement. They now work.
However, phpMyAdmin doesn't work. When I try it, it says that it can't connect to MySQL. The message is "Cannot connect: invalid settings." I checked the file /opt/lampp/lampp/php.ini and it seems to be correct.
Help. What do I look at now? Does it matter that I am running the default php 5?

[Wiedmann]

What do I look at now?

"config.inc.php" inthe phpMyAdmin directory.

[JimC]

It worked.

Thank you very much.