MySQL and PHPMyAdmin issue: locked out cant get back in

Question

I am trying to change my password with mysql, and I am not a smart man...

I have done google search after google search, and done everything I can to resolve the issue.

I am on Ubuntu 16.04, if that helps at all.

I type the command:

$ mysqladmin -u root password newpass

and I get:

mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed error: 
'Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)' 
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' exists!

Any suggestions?

Also, I recently had followed some directions to add password to phpmyadmin from this page.

This is what caused me to have the issue that I am trying to resolve, if that makes sense at all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit:

sudo service start mysql

produced:

start: unrecognized service

Tried this instead:

 service mysql start

and it started. then tested the status using:

service mysql status

produced:

● mysql.service - LSB: Start and stop the mysql database server daemon
Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/mysql; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (exited) since Fri 2017-01-06 12:17:04 CST; 2h 38min ago
Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)

Edit 2:

 sudo service mysql stop && sudo service mysql start && sudo service     mysql status
 [sudo] password for logan: 
 ● mysql.service - LSB: Start and stop the mysql database server      daemon
 Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/mysql; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
 Active: active (exited) since Mon 2017-01-09 09:11:39 CST; 16ms ago
 Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
 Process: 6014 ExecStop=/etc/init.d/mysql stop (code=exited,      status=0/SUCCESS)
 Process: 6050 ExecStart=/etc/init.d/mysql start (code=exited,     status=0/SUCCESS

 Jan 09 09:11:39 logan-Latitude-E6320 systemd[1]: Starting LSB: Start and stop th
 Jan 09 09:11:39 logan-Latitude-E6320 systemd[1]: Started LSB: Start and stop the

Edit 3:

I tried another method, hopefully this information is useful...

logan@logan-Latitude-E6320:~$ ps -ef | grep mysql
logan     8096  7119  0 13:21 pts/1    00:00:00 grep --color=auto mysql
root     19832  1244  0 Jan06 ?        00:00:00 /bin/sh     /opt/lampp/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/opt/lampp/var/mysql --pid-    file=/opt/lampp/var/mysql/logan-Latitude-E6320.pid
mysql    19975 19832  0 Jan06 ?        00:00:10 /opt/lampp/sbin/mysqld     --basedir=/opt/lampp --datadir=/opt/lampp/var/mysql --plugin-    dir=/opt/lampp/lib/mysql/plugin/ --user=mysql --log-     error=/opt/lampp/var/mysql/logan-Latitude-E6320.err --pid-     file=/opt/lampp/var/mysql/logan-Latitude-E6320.pid --    socket=/opt/lampp/var/mysql/mysql.sock --port=3306