Hi, I have noticed that my status variables are not updating. For example, if I do a simple select query many times on a table, SHOW STATUS reports that the Com_select = 0. As a matter of fact almost all variables are 0 or very low.

I am running a fresh install of a MySql 5.0 binary distribution, un-tar-red - not installed via yum (mysqld runs 5.0). In case you're interested, yum will still report that I have the following installed:
mysql.i386 4.1.11-2 installed
mysql-devel.i386 4.1.11-2 installed
mysql-server.i386 4.1.11-2 installed
mysqlclient10.i386 3.23.58-6 installed

The following is the output of SHOW STATUS:

mysql> show status;
+-----------------------------------+-----------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+-----------------------------------+-----------+
| Aborted_clients | 0 |
| Aborted_connects | 48 |
| Binlog_cache_disk_use | 0 |
| Binlog_cache_use | 16705 |
| Bytes_received | 83 |
| Bytes_sent | 80 |
| Com_admin_commands | 0 |
| Com_alter_db | 0 |
| Com_alter_table | 0 |
| Com_analyze | 0 |
| Com_backup_table | 0 |
| Com_begin | 0 |
| Com_change_db | 0 |
| Com_change_master | 0 |
| Com_check | 0 |
| Com_checksum | 0 |
| Com_commit | 0 |
| Com_create_db | 0 |
| Com_create_function | 0 |
| Com_create_index | 0 |
| Com_create_table | 0 |
| Com_dealloc_sql | 0 |
| Com_delete | 0 |
| Com_delete_multi | 0 |
| Com_do | 0 |
| Com_drop_db | 0 |
| Com_drop_function | 0 |
| Com_drop_index | 0 |
| Com_drop_table | 0 |
| Com_drop_user | 0 |
| Com_execute_sql | 0 |
| Com_flush | 0 |
| Com_grant | 0 |
| Com_ha_close | 0 |
| Com_ha_open | 0 |
| Com_ha_read | 0 |
| Com_help | 0 |
| Com_insert | 0 |
| Com_insert_select | 0 |
| Com_kill | 0 |
| Com_load | 0 |
| Com_load_master_data | 0 |
| Com_load_master_table | 0 |
| Com_lock_tables | 0 |
| Com_optimize | 0 |
| Com_preload_keys | 0 |
| Com_prepare_sql | 0 |
| Com_purge | 0 |
| Com_purge_before_date | 0 |
| Com_rename_table | 0 |
| Com_repair | 0 |
| Com_replace | 0 |
| Com_replace_select | 0 |
| Com_reset | 0 |
| Com_restore_table | 0 |
| Com_revoke | 0 |
| Com_revoke_all | 0 |
| Com_rollback | 0 |
| Com_savepoint | 0 |
| Com_select | 0 |
| Com_set_option | 0 |
| Com_show_binlog_events | 0 |
| Com_show_binlogs | 0 |
| Com_show_charsets | 0 |
| Com_show_collations | 0 |
| Com_show_column_types | 0 |
| Com_show_create_db | 0 |
| Com_show_create_table | 0 |
| Com_show_databases | 0 |
| Com_show_errors | 0 |
| Com_show_fields | 0 |
| Com_show_grants | 0 |
| Com_show_innodb_status | 0 |
| Com_show_keys | 0 |
| Com_show_logs | 0 |
| Com_show_master_status | 0 |
| Com_show_ndb_status | 0 |
| Com_show_new_master | 0 |
| Com_show_open_tables | 0 |
| Com_show_privileges | 0 |
| Com_show_processlist | 0 |
| Com_show_slave_hosts | 0 |
| Com_show_slave_status | 0 |
| Com_show_status | 1 |
| Com_show_storage_engines | 0 |
| Com_show_tables | 0 |
| Com_show_triggers | 0 |
| Com_show_variables | 0 |
| Com_show_warnings | 0 |
| Com_slave_start | 0 |
| Com_slave_stop | 0 |
| Com_stmt_close | 0 |
| Com_stmt_execute | 0 |
| Com_stmt_fetch | 0 |
| Com_stmt_prepare | 0 |
| Com_stmt_reset | 0 |
| Com_stmt_send_long_data | 0 |
| Com_truncate | 0 |
| Com_unlock_tables | 0 |
| Com_update | 0 |
| Com_update_multi | 0 |
| Com_xa_commit | 0 |
| Com_xa_end | 0 |
| Com_xa_prepare | 0 |
| Com_xa_recover | 0 |
| Com_xa_rollback | 0 |
| Com_xa_start | 0 |
| Compression | OFF |
| Connections | 889 |
| Created_tmp_disk_tables | 0 |
| Created_tmp_files | 5 |
| Created_tmp_tables | 1 |
| Delayed_errors | 0 |
| Delayed_insert_threads | 0 |
| Delayed_writes | 0 |
| Flush_commands | 1 |
| Handler_commit | 0 |
| Handler_delete | 0 |
| Handler_discover | 0 |
| Handler_prepare | 0 |
| Handler_read_first | 0 |
| Handler_read_key | 0 |
| Handler_read_next | 0 |
| Handler_read_prev | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd | 0 |
| Handler_read_rnd_next | 0 |
| Handler_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_savepoint | 0 |
| Handler_savepoint_rollback | 0 |
| Handler_update | 0 |
| Handler_write | 130 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_data | 236 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_dirty | 0 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_flushed | 3313 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_free | 274 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_latched | 0 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_misc | 2 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_pages_total | 512 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead_rnd | 2 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_ahead_seq | 0 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_read_requests | 673591 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_reads | 27 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_wait_free | 0 |
| Innodb_buffer_pool_write_requests | 280867 |
| Innodb_data_fsyncs | 30023 |
| Innodb_data_pending_fsyncs | 0 |
| Innodb_data_pending_reads | 0 |
| Innodb_data_pending_writes | 0 |
| Innodb_data_read | 2887680 |
| Innodb_data_reads | 42 |
| Innodb_data_writes | 31724 |
| Innodb_data_written | 133650944 |
| Innodb_dblwr_pages_written | 3313 |
| Innodb_dblwr_writes | 270 |
| Innodb_log_waits | 0 |
| Innodb_log_write_requests | 20842 |
| Innodb_log_writes | 29227 |
| Innodb_os_log_fsyncs | 29486 |
| Innodb_os_log_pending_fsyncs | 0 |
| Innodb_os_log_pending_writes | 0 |
| Innodb_os_log_written | 24955904 |
| Innodb_page_size | 16384 |
| Innodb_pages_created | 193 |
| Innodb_pages_read | 43 |
| Innodb_pages_written | 3313 |
| Innodb_row_lock_current_waits | 0 |
| Innodb_row_lock_time | 0 |
| Innodb_row_lock_time_avg | 0 |
| Innodb_row_lock_time_max | 0 |
| Innodb_row_lock_waits | 0 |
| Innodb_rows_deleted | 10406 |
| Innodb_rows_inserted | 14453 |
| Innodb_rows_read | 763236 |
| Innodb_rows_updated | 120 |
| Key_blocks_not_flushed | 0 |
| Key_blocks_unused | 14392 |
| Key_blocks_used | 106 |
| Key_read_requests | 151213 |
| Key_reads | 194 |
| Key_write_requests | 8167 |
| Key_writes | 5876 |
| Last_query_cost | 0.000000 |
| Max_used_connections | 98 |
| Not_flushed_delayed_rows | 0 |
| Open_files | 80 |
| Open_streams | 0 |
| Open_tables | 62 |
| Opened_tables | 0 |
| Qcache_free_blocks | 0 |
| Qcache_free_memory | 0 |
| Qcache_hits | 0 |
| Qcache_inserts | 0 |
| Qcache_lowmem_prunes | 0 |
| Qcache_not_cached | 0 |
| Qcache_queries_in_cache | 0 |
| Qcache_total_blocks | 0 |
| Questions | 85470 |
| Rpl_status | NULL |
| Select_full_join | 0 |
| Select_full_range_join | 0 |
| Select_range | 0 |
| Select_range_check | 0 |
| Select_scan | 1 |
| Slave_open_temp_tables | 0 |
| Slave_retried_transactions | 0 |
| Slave_running | OFF |
| Slow_launch_threads | 0 |
| Slow_queries | 0 |
| Sort_merge_passes | 0 |
| Sort_range | 0 |
| Sort_rows | 0 |
| Sort_scan | 0 |
| Table_locks_immediate | 68946 |
| Table_locks_waited | 1 |
| Tc_log_max_pages_used | 0 |
| Tc_log_page_size | 0 |
| Tc_log_page_waits | 0 |
| Threads_cached | 0 |
| Threads_connected | 15 |
| Threads_created | 888 |
| Threads_running | 1 |
| Uptime | 12483 |
+-----------------------------------+-----------+
222 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Thanks.

Ok, mysql 5.0 has introduced a couple of new keywords.
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/show-status.html