Any thoughts on the SEGV?

Well I assume you know a SEGV is a SEGmentation Violation aka a SEGFAULT. Given that I and many others connect to Linux based Mysql databases from Win32 using DBI without any issues the question is why?

The DB connection is a TCP one to 3306 so your Win32 and Linux firewalls need to allow that. You don't show it but I assume that your real connection string includes server *and* port:

'dbname=DATABASENAME;host=MYSQLSERVER.DOMAIN.COM:3306'
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You should be able to connect via telnet :

C:\> telnet mysqlserver.domain.com 3306
0
4.0.20-standardZZ5;eo{=,☻

Connection to host lost.
C:\>
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And see a response like the one above from your remote Mysql server. If not you have a firewall issue to fix.

Assuming you are pointing the connect string at the server:port where your Mysql server lives then a likely reason is that you are using binaries for DBI and DBD::Mysql that are linked against the wrong C libraries for your system. The first suggestion is to install the latest versions of DBI and DBD::Mysql you can find. Also just make a trivial test script that connects, makes a query and disconnects to make sure it is not an issue with DBI and the other modules you are using. If you have CL.EXE you could compile DBI and DBD::Mysql yourself which would almost certainly resolve the issue.