Mysql refusing to start

Hello,
I am really stuck with the following problem and I have tried
almost all options I could find on Google to no avail.

I recently installed the rpm version of MySQL server 5.0.26
on Fedora Core 3. When I try to start the MySQL server, it fails and
this is the error log I get.

061112 14:50:29 mysqld started
061112 14:50:29 InnoDB: Started
061112 14:50:29 /usr/sbin/mysqld-max: Can't open file: 'host.MYI'
(errno: 142)
061112 14:50:29 Fatal error: Can't open privilege tables: File
'/usr/share/mysql/charsets/?.conf' not found (Errcode: 2)
061112 14:50:29 Aborting

061112 14:50:29 InnoDB: Starting shutdown...
061112 14:50:31 InnoDB: Shutdown completed
061112 14:50:31 /usr/sbin/mysqld-max: Shutdown complete

061112 14:50:31 mysqld ended

I checked the /var/lib/mysql/mysql directory for the host.MYI file and
it is present and owned by mysql with permissions rw_rw_ _ _ _. I
checked what error code 142 meant by

# perror 142

and got the response 'Unknown character set used"

So then I did

# myisamchk -dvv host.MYI and this is the response I get

MyISAM file: host.MYI
Record format: Fixed length
Character set: latin1_swedish_ci (8)
File-version: 1
Creation time: 2006-11-11 15:34:53
Status: checked,analyzed,optimized keys,sorted index pages
Data records: 0 Deleted blocks: 0
Datafile parts: 0 Deleted data: 0
Datafile pointer (bytes): 6 Keyfile pointer (bytes): 5
Datafile length: 0 Keyfile length: 1024
Max datafile length: 109775240917155838 Max keyfile length:
1125899906841599
Recordlength: 390

table description:
Key Start Len Index Type Rec/key Root
Blocksize
1 2 180 unique char packed stripped 0
2048
182 192 char stripped 1

Field Start Length Nullpos Nullbit Type
1 1 1
2 2 180
3 182 192
4 374 1
5 375 1
6 376 1
7 377 1
8 378 1
9 379 1
10 380 1
11 381 1
12 382 1
13 383 1
14 384 1
15 385 1
16 386 1
17 387 1
18 388 1
19 389 1
20 390 1

Clearly, there is no character set missing in the Index file. I then
checked the /usr/share/mysql/charsets directory and found that it
contained only xml files for the index and charset definitions. So then
I transfered *.conf files and Index file into the directory from an
older version of mysql running on a different box. I made sure that the
latin1 character set is defined in both the index file as well as the
index.xml file. I also have the latin1.xml and latin1.conf files
present in the directory. Still no luck.

I am at my wit's end and would appreciate any suggestions to make it
work!