Compiling and installing psycopg ******************************** While psycopg 1.x used autoconf for its build process psycopg 2 switched to the more pythoning setup.py. Currently both psycopg's author and distutils have some limitations so the file setup.cfg is almost unused and most build options are hidden in setup.py. Before building psycopg look at setup.cfg file and change any settings to follow your system (or taste); then: python setup.py build to build in the local directory; and: python setup.py install to install system-wide. Using setuptools and EasyInstall ================================ If setuptools are installed on your system you can easily create an egg for psycopg and install it. Download the source distribution (if you're reading this file you probably already have) and then edit setup.cfg to your taste and build from the source distribution top-level directory using: easy_install . Compiling under Windows with mingw32 ==================================== You can compile psycopg under Windows platform with mingw32 (http://www.mingw.org/) compiler. MinGW is also shipped with IDEs such as Dev-C++ (http://www.bloodshed.net/devcpp.html) and Code::Blocks (http://www.codeblocks.org). gcc binaries should be in your PATH. You need a PostgreSQL with include and libary files installed. At least v8.0 is required. First you need to create a libpython2X.a as described in http://starship.python.net/crew/kernr/mingw32/Notes.html. Then run: python setup.py build_ext --compiler=mingw32 install