Performance Tunning

Hi,

today I noticed by accident that our mysql server occassionaly runs out
of connections. This is very bad and I did not notice it before. I have
now increase the maximum connections from the default 100 to 500.

To avoid other performance issues I was wondering, which settings I
should also increase besides the maximum connection count?

And does mysql keep a profiling log from where I can see, which other
settings I should increase?! I run linux/sarge under a Pentium 4 2.1
Ghz with 1 GB RAM.

thx
Fritz