Comment 3 for bug 687419

More info:

It's true that 'python setup.py build' does not accept the --prefix argument, so the 'all:' rule in the top level Makefile is bogus. But actually, the entire Makefile is unnecessary. dh_python2 should just Do The Right Thing with the existing setup.py. See the attached branch, which successfully builds for me, but is probably not entire right. It removes the top level Makefile, but in order to do that, I had to pass --source-option=--include-removal to the dpkg-buildpackage call. However, in order to do *that* I had to change the source format to 3.0 (quilt). (source format 1 does not accept that option.)

My recommendation would be to remove the top level Makefile entirely and just let dh_python2 do its thing. This will also let you simplify debian/rules. See the linked branch for reference, or let me know and I'll put together a for-real branch for review.