The problem is that PHP 4.4.0 comes with a mysql 3.23.49 client library. By default the mysql 4.1 server uses a new password format incompatible with this version of the mysql client. To permit access one must set the mysql user password using the old_password() function:

SET PASSWORD FOR 'some_user'@'localhost' = OLD_PASSWORD('mypassword');

See:

• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/old-client.html