Hello, 

attached tarbal is a patch bomb of 32 patches against python 2.5, that we lilypond developers use for crosscompiling python.  The patches were originally written by Jan Nieuwenhuizen, my codeveloper.

These patches have been tested with Linux/x86, linux/x64 and macos 10.3  as build host and   linux-{ppc,x86,x86_64}, freebsd, mingw as target platform. All packages at  lilypond.org/install/ except for darwin contain the x-compiled python.

Each patch is prefixed with a small comment, but for reference, I include a snippet from the readme.

It would be nice if at least some of the patches were included. In particular, I think that X-compiling is a common request, so it warrants inclusion.

Basically, what we do is override autoconf and Makefile settings through setting enviroment variables.

**README section** 


Cross Compiling
---------------

Python can be cross compiled by supplying different --build and --host
parameters to configure.  Python is compiled on the "build" system and
executed on the "host" system.  Cross compiling python requires a
native Python on the build host, and a natively compiled tool `Pgen'.

Before cross compiling, Python must first be compiled and installed on
the build host.  The configure script will use `cc' and `python', or
environment variables CC_FOR_BUILD or PYTHON_FOR_BUILD, eg:

   CC_FOR_BUILD=gcc-3.3 \
   PYTHON_FOR_BUILD=python2.4 \
   .../configure --build=i686-linux --host=i586-mingw32

Cross compiling has been tested under linux, mileage may vary for
other platforms.

A few reminders on using configure to cross compile:
- Cross compile tools must be in PATH,
- Cross compile tools must be prefixed with the host type
  (ie i586-mingw32-gcc, i586-mingw32-ranlib, ...),
- CC, CXX, AR, and RANLIB must be undefined when running configure,
  they will be auto-detected.

If you need a cross compiler, Debian ships several several (eg: avr,
m68hc1x, mingw32), while dpkg-cross easily creates others.  Otherwise,
check out Dan Kegel's crosstool: http://www.kegel.com/crosstool .