Wordpress 5 minute installation becomes 5 hour one !

Last week I tried to setup a chakpak blog - I decided on wordpress. The famous 5 minute install became a gruesome 5 hour one ! As far as I remember these are the steps that created problems

Environment was a centos linux server on the planet with mysql 4.1.20, and httpd

* Location - Dont put the wordpress inside cgi-bin. It should be at the same level as cgi-bin.

* Php & MySQL - You got to install the php-mysql rpm - shell$ yum-install php-mysql. I just presumed it would be there. was dead wrong there ! I guess it gave the following error -Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL which is required for WordPress

* phpinfo.php was useful to check if the php is running fine under httpd. search the web for the actual file

* Permissions - Proper permissions on mysql . The mysql user should have proper permission + should have the password in OLD_PASSWORD form.

* Permissions - wordpress files should have executable permission, but shouldnt have write permissions.