I can confirm the same observation on AMD64 Feisty.
Since upgrading from Edgy, phpMyAdmin gave access denied error until I installed php5-mcrypt.
Package versions:
mysql-server-5.0 5.0.38-0ubuntu1 php5-mysql 5.2.1-0ubuntu1.1 phpmyadmin 2.9.1.1-2ubuntu1
I can confirm the same observation on AMD64 Feisty.
Since upgrading from Edgy, phpMyAdmin gave access denied error until I installed php5-mcrypt.
Package versions:
mysql-server-5.0 5.0.38-0ubuntu1
php5-mysql 5.2.1-0ubuntu1.1
phpmyadmin 2.9.1.1-2ubuntu1