I'm under the impression that this is issue is known about, however I couldn't find an existing bug, so I'm creating a new one for the following test failure:


test_distutils
/usr/lib/gcc/i686-pc-linux-gnu/4.4.4/../../../../i686-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: cannot find -lpython2.6
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
test test_distutils failed -- Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/var/tmp/paludis/build/dev-lang-python-2.6.4-r1/work/Python-2.6.4/Lib/distutils/tests/test_build_ext.py", line 258, in test_get_outputs
    cmd.run()
  File "/var/tmp/paludis/build/dev-lang-python-2.6.4-r1/work/Python-2.6.4/Lib/distutils/command/build_ext.py", line 340, in run
    self.build_extensions()
  File "/var/tmp/paludis/build/dev-lang-python-2.6.4-r1/work/Python-2.6.4/Lib/distutils/command/build_ext.py", line 449, in build_extensions
    self.build_extension(ext)
  File "/var/tmp/paludis/build/dev-lang-python-2.6.4-r1/work/Python-2.6.4/Lib/distutils/command/build_ext.py", line 531, in build_extension
    target_lang=language)
  File "/var/tmp/paludis/build/dev-lang-python-2.6.4-r1/work/Python-2.6.4/Lib/distutils/ccompiler.py", line 848, in link_shared_object
    extra_preargs, extra_postargs, build_temp, target_lang)
  File "/var/tmp/paludis/build/dev-lang-python-2.6.4-r1/work/Python-2.6.4/Lib/distutils/unixccompiler.py", line 265, in link
    raise LinkError, msg
LinkError: command 'i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc' failed with exit status 1


Perhaps I'm missing something here, but surely trying to link against the system (i.e. already installed, pre-existing) libpython2.6 defeats the purpose of having a testsuite, if you're not actually going to be testing what you're actually installing?

Any enlightenment here would be appreciated.