the ffi_convenience library was once built and installed with oldish GCC versions. Either remove it completely from the search path, or search for  the standard libffi system library.

--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -1939,7 +1939,7 @@
                         break
         ffi_lib = None
         if ffi_inc is not None:
-            for lib_name in ('ffi_convenience', 'ffi_pic', 'ffi'):
+            for lib_name in ('ffi', 'ffi_convenience', 'ffi_pic', 'ffi'):
                 if (self.compiler.find_library_file(lib_dirs, lib_name)):
                     ffi_lib = lib_name
                     break

the list of libs should be just: ('ffi', 'ffi_pic')

I don't understand the story with ffi_convenience here. Perhaps someone else on python-dev remembers what it was for and whether we need it for any platforms, still?

It's not easy to find anything with a google search for 'ffi_convenience' that's not this issue.  I did find doko's patch to GCC to not install libffi_convenience, which included a comment from the author of libffi saying he didn't recommend that GCC install libffi_convenience in the first place[1].

For the record, #1464444 is the issue that added the line in question in the first place.

[1] https://www.sourceware.org/ml/libffi-discuss/2013/msg00125.html

New changeset 0a8509023c09 by doko in branch 'default':
- Issue #21277: Don't try to link _ctypes with a ffi_convenience library.
https://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/0a8509023c09