I extracted the xampp package xampp-linux-1.6.7 on a Ubuntu 8.10 system and followed the instuctions from mod_wsgi documentation. I get the error below:
ravi@Ibex:~/mod_wsgi-2.3$ ./configure --with-apxs=/opt/lampp/bin/apxs
checking Apache version... cannot open /opt/lampp/build/config_vars.mk: No such file or directory at /opt/lampp/bin/apxs line 218.
cannot open /opt/lampp/build/config_vars.mk: No such file or directory at /opt/lampp/bin/apxs line 218.
./configure: line 1696: /: is a directory
checking for python... /usr/bin/python
cannot open /opt/lampp/build/config_vars.mk: No such file or directory at /opt/lampp/bin/apxs line 218.
configure: creating ./config.status
config.status: error: cannot find input file: Makefile.in
I could not google for instructions on getting mod_wsgi running on xampp. Please help.
Solution: The solution for this is buried in the comments. Thanks to Martin v. Löwis I was able to solve this. When apxs throws and error complaining about missing config_vars.mk it means that the build directory of Apache is missing. Fox xampp users the solution is to download xampp-dev as well and extract that to the same path.