If you set the environment variable DISTUTILS_DEBUG=1, distutils will
run with DEBUG, which will trace internal activity.  But one of the
traces is incorrect, and leads to this stack trace: 

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 116, in <module>
    **more_setup_args
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\core.py", line 123, in setup
    dist.parse_config_files()
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\dist.py", line 357, in parse_config_files
    self.announce("  reading", filename)
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\dist.py", line 911, in announce
    log.log(level, msg)
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\log.py", line 31, in log
    self._log(level, msg, args)
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\log.py", line 20, in _log
    if level >= self.threshold:
TypeError: unorderable types: str() >= int()


The fix is simple: at line 356 of dist.py, change:

            if DEBUG:
                self.announce("  reading", filename)

to:
            if DEBUG:
                self.announce("  reading " + filename)

Another one:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 72, in <module>
    **addl_args
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\core.py", line 149, in setup
    dist.run_commands()
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\dist.py", line 919, in run_commands
    self.run_command(cmd)
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\dist.py", line 937, in run_command
    cmd_obj.ensure_finalized()
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\cmd.py", line 109, in ensure_finalized
    self.finalize_options()
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\command\install.py", line 315, in
finalize_options
    self.dump_dirs("pre-finalize_{unix,other}")
  File "c:\python31\lib\distutils\command\install.py", line 427, in
dump_dirs
    opt_name = opt_name.translate(longopt_xlate)
TypeError: 'function' object is not subscriptable

Thanks for noticing this. I'll add some test covering these and fix the
problems.

Mmm, the problem is deeper for the second stack trace: 

distutils.fancy_getopt.longopt_xlate was changed from a translation
mapping into a lambda in py3, that's why you have it.

I'm fixing back this problem too.

Everything is covered now, and the mentioned bug is fixed in 
trunk (r74994), py3k (r74999) and release31 (75000).

Thanks !