Shared object access problems

[Tim Johnson]

Using python 2.6.4 on slackware 13.1
I have MySQLdb 'by hand', that is: by
1)downloading MySQL-python-1.2.3c1.tar.gz
2)unzipping tarfile
3)running python setup.py build
4)running python setup.py install

The build and install seemed to proceded without error,
but upon invoking the interpreter and running
>>> import MySQLdb
I get the following ImportError:
##############################################################
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/MySQLdb/__init__.py",
    line 19, in <module>
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/_mysql.py",
    line 7, in <module>
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/_mysql.py",
    line 6, in __bootstrap__
ImportError: libmysqlclient_r.so.15:
  cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
##############################################################
There was no libmysqlclient_r.so.15 on my machine, so I made
symlinks at both /usr/lib/mysql/ and /usr/lib which
are libmysqlclient_r.so.15 pointing to
/usr/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient_r.so.16.0.0

Now when I run import MySQLdb, I get the following error:
##############################################################
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "MySQLdb/__init__.py", line 19, in <module>
    import _mysql
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/_mysql.py",
    line 7, in <module>
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/_mysql.py",
   line 6, in __bootstrap__
ImportError: /usr/lib/libmysqlclient_r.so.15:
  version `libmysqlclient_15' not found
   (required by
    /home/tim/.python-eggs/MySQL_python-1.2.3c1-py2.6-linux-i686.egg-tmp
     /_mysql.so)
##############################################################
# Note that the parenthesized expression beginning with "(required"
# has been broken to accomodate the newsgroup - was one line
[sigh!] I've been using python and mysql on linux for 10 years and
have done many 'hand installs' and boy has it gotten complicated.
Any ideas?
thanks

-- 
Tim 
tim at johnsons-web.com or akwebsoft.com
http://www.akwebsoft.com