diff --git a/doc/installation.rst b/doc/installation.rst
index be9b142b7..f41df447e 100644
--- a/doc/installation.rst
+++ b/doc/installation.rst
@@ -80,11 +80,15 @@ 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.
+Unix flavors other than OSX. 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 development package that
+provides the necessary header files for your version of Python. The package
+name may vary from distro to distro. Here are some examples for popular
+Linux distributions:
+
+- RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux)/CentOS: python-devel
+- Debian/Ubuntu: python-dev
 
 Pre-built eggs are available for OSX Snow Leopard on PyPI.
 
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index fb00cd02e..bb76d5515 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -100,8 +100,12 @@ 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.
+install GCC and/or the Python development package for your
+version of Python. Python development package names for popular
+Linux distributions include:
+
+RHEL/CentOS: python-devel
+Debian/Ubuntu: python-dev
 
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