Trouble with MySQL Gem

Ran into trouble installing the native MySQL database extension for Ruby via the gem command.

sudo gem install mysql

results in some complaints: Building native extensions. This could take a while... ERROR: While executing gem ... (RuntimeError) ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

Apparently, on my Mac OS X Panther system, MySQL was installed in /usr/local/lib rather than /usr/lib.

To fix: cd /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.6 sudo ruby extconf.rb --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql sudo gem install mysql

More info here: http://wiki.rubyonrails.com/rails/show/MySQL+Database+access+problem

For Windows, here: http://www.bantamtech.com/~kevin/?p=28

Update: Much simpler solution per Ruby on Rails mailing list: sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql

Update 2: An even simpler solution per Ruby on Rails mailing list: sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config