libtool-related problem with latest gtk/glib/pango/pygtk

[Skip Montanaro]

I'm starting to use the glib/gtk 1.3.3 from Python 2.1 on my Mandrake Linux
7.1 system using James Henstridge's pygtk wrappers.  I have a very simple
Python script that bombs with a number of these messages:

    Cannot load module /usr/local/lib/pango/modules/pango-basic-x.so: couldn't 
open libtool archive

When I run python under strace, it becomes apparent that somebody is trying
to open the wrong file:

    open("/usr/local/lib/pango/modules/pango-basic-x.so.la", O_RDONLY) = -1 
ENOENT (No such file or directory)

I know nothing about how libtool does its magic, so I'm at a loss how to
work around this problem.  The somewhat obvious workaround of creating a
symlink named pango-basic-x.so.la that refers to pango-basic-x.la doesn't
work (it leads to other errors).

I don't know if it matters, but python itself is not compiled or linked
using libtool, though the various shared libraries involved (including
pygtk).

Can someone explain to me what's going wrong (and hopefully how to fix the
problem)?

Thanks,

-- 
Skip Montanaro (address@hidden)
(847)971-7098