[Eric L. Walstad, on Fri, 31 Mar 2000] :: When building MySQLdb: :: "ImportError: No module named _mysql" :: :: This little error message plagued me for about 3 weeks. After reformatting :: my hard drive and re-installing Linux, Python, MySQL and MySQLdb, all from :: the source files, I finally found the solution (well, it worked for me) and :: am posting it for anyone else that runs into the same trouble. The good :: news (for you) is that all the re-installing isn't necessary. <snip rest of hair raising saga> Damn. What a nightmare. Eric, I'm going to make some assumptions. Please forgive me if I'm off base: 1. You're pretty new to Linux 2. You've had some prior experience with Microsoft's operating systems None of your problems were caused by Linux, Python, MySQLdb or Zope, but rather by your lack of familiarity with your OS. Hopefully, your three weeks in hell have taught you that it's time to spend some time getting to know Linux better. ;-) As a rule of thumb, you should never need to reformat your hard drive(!), nor reinstall Linux or Python. I repeat ... never! Too often, users of Win95/98/NT find themselves taking this kind of course, like when their DLLs get FUBAR'd, but that's almost never necessary with Linux. If you find yourself thinking you need to do this, stop. It's a sign you need to get some more information about what's happening. Everything you'll ever need to know about Linux is available for free on the Internet, but it can be hard to locate. So I strongly urge you to go out and purchase a good reference book. Matt Welsh's _Running Linux_ will do fine. Once you get your book, you want to do some reading about ldconfig, ld.so.conf, and LD_LIBRARY_PATH.