phpmyadmin不能用，求助

iamshiyu

最近在学php，rhel4系统，mysql 4.1.10,php,4.3.9，前面的基本实验（phpinfo()和一些循环语句练习脚本）都成功了，到了学习与mysql结合的时候被告知需要安装phpmyadmin，于是官网上下了一个2.11版本，解压后cp到前面用于实验php脚本的目录(目录名phpmyadmin），然后用http://IP/phpmyadmin/访问，得到的信息是：
phpMyAdmin - 错误
Cannot start session without errors, please check errors given in your PHP and/or webserver log file and configure your PHP installation properly.
看了一下http的access.log显示：
[11/Oct/2007:17:44:13 +0800] "GET /phpmyadmin/ HTTP/1.1" 302 - "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; TencentTraveler ;InfoPath.1)"
[11/Oct/2007:17:44:13 +0800] "GET /phpmyadmin/error.php?lang=zh&dir=ltr&type=%E9%94%99%E8%AF%AF&error=Cannot+start+session+without+errors%2C+please+check+errors+given+in+your+PHP+and%2For+webserver+log+file+and+configure+your+PHP+installation+properly. HTTP/1.1" 200 1210 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible;MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; TencentTraveler ; InfoPath.1)"
error.log显示：
PHP Warning:  Unknown(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_e17b9312f8496b95de44092d3f4ade5e, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13) in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning:  Unknown(): Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning:  session_start(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ff3a442e584662e75deb1477ccadd5a3, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13) in /home/gaochenyu/web/phpmyadmin/libraries/session.inc.php on line 89
PHP Warning:  Unknown(): open(/var/lib/php/session/sess_ff3a442e584662e75deb1477ccadd5a3, O_RDWR) failed: Permission denied (13) in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning:  Unknown(): Failed to write session data (files). Please verify that the current setting of session.save_path is correct (/var/lib/php/session) in Unknown on line 0
等等一大堆，我看不出什么……
希望高手指点……
/var/lib/php/session/这个目录存在，下面什么文件都没有。现在不知道该怎么处理了……