building python from the tarball on RedHat

[Patrick Curtain]

Howdy All!

Hopefully that subject will narrow down those looking at this message
and save everyone some time.

First, a confession.  I've got a wierd (i think) linux setup.  I'm
running the RedHat 5.2 distribution, but I'm using several applications
from source; I'm bypassing the RPM mechanism.  This may be the cause of
my troubles, but....   I want to be able to build from tar balls, so...

I need to have my system setup to run apache (1.3.6), php3 (3.05) and
MySQL (3.22.20a).  Using the default RPM's for each of these didn't get
me a working system in which php would talk to mysql.  To make that much
work, I downloaded the tar balls for each app, ungzip'd and did the
usual ./configure; make; make install; process.

Now I'm trying to get python working with MySQL from the source tar
ball.  I downloaded py152b2.tgz and did the same process to build it.
When I run the interpreter and say 'import Mysqldb' it says
'ImportError: No module named Mysqldb'.

I downloaded MySQLmodule-1.4.tar.gz, read the instructions and tried to
build.  I'm definitely new to building systems blind, but...
irregardless of what I try, the 'make install' step (or 'make test'
before that) gives the following:

'./python: error in loading shared libraries
libmysqlclient.so.6: cannot open shared object file:  No such file or
directory
make: *** [libinstall] Error 127'

The file 'libmysqlclient.so.6' is in /usr/local/lib/mysql  and that
directory is named in the Modules/Setup file.  Not sure about pasting
that section in here, but let me know if that info would help as well.
I just pulled the block from the readme.

Any ideas?  Where can I search from this point?  And thanks in advance!
--p
Patrick Curtain,  Husband & Father   (i also write software)