Re: Installation appears stuck at first step
On CentOS, you probably want rpm or the yum front end to it. Try this:
yum install php5-mysql
Maybe you need sudo in front of that command, depending on your system configuration. In that case sudo yum install php5-mysql.
That should install the package for you on CentOS.
http://www.centos.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?post_id=49482&topic_id=14408