MySQL needed to have support in PHP?

Hey. I've looked around, and I can't seem to find out if I actually have to have MySQL installed on a system to compile support for it into PHP. Can I throw the binary distro on, compile MySQL support into PHP, then delete the /usr/local/mysql dir?

I'm running a MySQL server off my box and have all the stuff I need compiled in and installed... works great. Problem is my friend wants to host a page on his computer that accesses my SQL server. The page does it with PHP and the PHP mysql_* commands.

Thanks for your help URL
-steve