Apparently, the DBD::mysql works fine, but as I understand it DBD::mysqlPP is better?

Where did you get that idea? DBD::mysqlPP has the ability to be installed without compilation but other than that I don't think it has any advantages over DBD::mysql. DBD::mysql is much faster and has more capabilities (recent ones with true prepare). DBD::mysqlPP was last updated over two and half years ago while DBD::mysql was updated over a dozen times in that period. One of the maintainers of DBD::mysql works for MySQL AB. I'm not knocking DBD::mysqlPP - it's a great hack for situations in which the other can't be installed (a situation that was much more common a few years ago) but for production work, I'd definitely recommend DBD::mysql, especially when using newer versions of MySQL.