diff --git a/doc/installation.rst b/doc/installation.rst
index f9ccee4af..766c24495 100644
--- a/doc/installation.rst
+++ b/doc/installation.rst
@@ -20,6 +20,18 @@ the driver from the resulting tree::
   $ cd pymongo/
   $ python setup.py install
 
+Dependencies for installing C Extensions on Unix
+------------------------------------------------
+
+10gen does not currently provide statically linked binary packages for
+Unix. To build the optional C extensions you must have the GNU C compiler
+(gcc) installed. Depending on your flavor of Unix (or Linux distribution)
+you may also need a python-dev package that provides the necessary header
+files for your version of Python. The package name may vary from distro
+to distro.
+
+Pre-built eggs are available for OSX Snow Leopard on PyPI.
+
 .. _install-no-c:
 
 Installing Without C Extensions
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 446b98c1b..ce26fe384 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -99,6 +99,10 @@ WARNING: %s could not
 be compiled. No C extensions are essential for PyMongo to run,
 although they do result in significant speed improvements.
 
+If you are seeing this message on Linux you probably need to
+install GCC and/or the Python development libraries for your
+version of Python.
+
 %s
 **************************************************************
 """