How to install MySQLdb in virtualenv on Debian

If you try to install MySQL-Python with pip as follow:

pip install MySQL-Python

You will get this error, because of missing header files of libmysqlclient:

$ pip install MySQL-Python
Downloading/unpacking MySQL-Python  
Downloading MySQL-python-1.2.3.tar.gz (70Kb): 70Kb downloaded  
Running setup.py egg_info for package MySQL-Python    
sh: 1: mysql_config: not found    
Traceback (most recent call last):     
 File "<string>", line 14, in <module>      
File "/home/maik/.virtualenvs/env1/build/MySQL-Python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>        
metadata, options = get_config()      
File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config        
libs = mysql_config("libs_r")      
File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config        
raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))   
 EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found    
Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:    
sh: 1: mysql_config: not found
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<string>", line 14, in <module>
 File "/home/maik/.virtualenvs/env1/build/MySQL-Python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>
 metadata, options = get_config()
 File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config
 libs = mysql_config("libs_r")
 File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config
 raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))
EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found

This error can be solved by installing the libmysqlclient header files.

aptitude install libmysqlclient-dev