Ok, If I replace '{interpreter} setup.py build_man'
by 'env; setup.py build_man' I get this HOME=/home/picca PYTHONPATH=/home/picca/Debian/silx/silx/.pybuild/pythonX.Y_2.7/build but If I read the code of def create_pydistutils_cfg(func): """distutils doesn't have sane command-line API - this decorator creates .pydistutils.cfg file to workaround it hint: if you think this is plain stupid, please don't read distutils/setuptools/distribute sources """ def wrapped_func(self, context, args, *oargs, **kwargs): fpath = join(args['home_dir'], '.pydistutils.cfg') if not exists(fpath): with open(fpath, 'w', encoding='utf-8') as fp: lines = ['[clean]\n', 'all=1\n', '[build]\n', 'build-lib={}\n'.format(args['build_dir']), '[install]\n', 'force=1\n', 'install-layout=deb\n', 'install-scripts=/usr/bin\n', 'install-lib={}\n'.format(args['install_dir']), '[easy_install]\n', 'allow_hosts=None\n'] log.debug('pydistutils config file:\n%s', ''.join(lines)) fp.writelines(lines) context['ENV']['HOME'] = args['home_dir'] return func(self, context, args, *oargs, **kwargs) we can see that the HOME should be home_dir HOME should be /home/picca/Debian/silx/silx/.pybuild/pythonX.Y_2.7 I think that there is a problem here. right ?