[documentation] need help with PDO requirement

[adept digital evolution]

Hi all,

I have been helping to review and edit the d7 installation manual from 
the standpoint of a reasonably technical end-user, but one with zero php 
experience and very little experience with my linux web server (CentOS). 
(And, IMO, the average person who wishes to download, install, and use 
Drupal should not really need to know anything about coding in php, and 
often will have no access to things like php configuration for the 
server, such as with a shared hosting account)

Anyway, I do have control over my own server (a VPS) with WHM for the 
server and CPanel for the domains it serves.

I am completely stymied with the need to install the PDO extension and 
enable it.

Where do I get it? Where do I put it? How do I get it running?

So far someone has copied information from an external site to a "What 
is PDO?" page at http://drupal.org/node/549702 but it is not helping me 
at all.

I have also visited http://us3.php.net/manual/en/pdo.installation.php 
but this page that supposedly ought to tell one how to install tells one 
really NOTHING.

I have seen references to something like "./configure". What is that? 
Where do I find it?



Could someone volunteer to help me get PDO installed (although since I'm 
on CentOS 5.2 and PHP 5.2.8 as I understand it it is there already 
somewhere; I just have to figure out how to enable it)?

I ran into a similar problem with the need in D6 for mb_string. My 
status page always reports it's missing but I have no clue, again, where 
to get it, where to put it, and how to get it running.

If someone can work with me offline on this I will write up instructions 
that are intelligible to us mere mortals, i.e., the most important 
target market for Drupal.

thanks,

kazar at d.o.
techlists at ade.pt