Why can't easy_install find MySQLdb?

This is what I tried:

$ easy_install-2.6 -d /home/user/lib/python2.6 MySQLdb  
Searching for MySQLdb  
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/MySQLdb/  
Couldn't find index page for 'MySQLdb' (maybe misspelled?)  
Scanning index of all packages (this may take a while)  
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/  
No local packages or download links found for MySQLdb  
error: Could not find suitable distribution for Requirement.parse('MySQLdb')  

You have the wrong package name.

MySQL-python is the right one:

easy_install MySQL-python

or

pip install MySQL-python

Adam is right but before you run easy_install MySQL-python you need to make sure python-dev is installed as it is not installed by default.

Install is with apt-get install python-dev.

If you are using "yum" the command is sudo yum install python-devel (where 'sudo' may be optional depending on your user account)