can't decompress data; zlib not available

[Steve Edlefsen]

Hi,

I'm trying to install a tool for Plone called ZopeSkel, but
when I run the setup file ez_setup.py, I get

dr_shred at merle:~$ ez_setup.py
Downloading 
http://pypi.python.org/packages/2.4/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.4.egg
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "/home/dr_shred/python/ez_setup.py", line 279, in ?
     main(sys.argv[1:])
   File "/home/dr_shred/python/ez_setup.py", line 213, in main
     from setuptools.command.easy_install import main
zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

I believe this means the python installation didn't include zlib.  Python
was installed with Plone and has the following config directory:

dr_shred at merle:/usr/local/Plone/Python-2.6/lib/python2.6/config$ ls -l
total 10208
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     2139 2011-10-24 17:53 config.c
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     1507 2011-10-24 17:53 config.c.in
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     7122 2011-10-24 17:53 install-sh
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 10342706 2011-10-24 17:53 libpython2.6.a
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    42568 2011-10-24 17:53 Makefile
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     7431 2011-10-24 17:53 makesetup
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root     6528 2011-10-24 17:53 python.o
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root    18265 2011-10-24 17:53 Setup
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root      368 2011-10-24 17:53 Setup.config
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root       41 2011-10-24 17:53 Setup.local

There's no readme file, or anything to describe how it all works.
The Setup file has an entry

zlib zlibmodule.c -I$(prefix)/include -L$(exec_prefix)/lib -lz

which appears to install zlib when python is reinstalled.  Except I
can't run make without errors and there is no configuration file.

How do I reinstall python to include zlib?

Many Thanks,

Steve Edlefsen