I'm working on a machine for which I do not have root access...

I would like to install meld, for which I need to install pygtk.

The default python is too old, so python-2.7.3 is installed in my home directory at ~/apps/Python-2.7.3/python which is in my PATH.

When I try to configure pygtk it fails with the following error message:

checking for python version... 2.7
checking for python platform... linux2
checking for python script directory... ${prefix}/lib/python2.7/site-packages
checking for python extension module directory... ${exec_prefix}/lib/python2.7/site-packages
checking for headers required to compile python extensions... not found
configure: error: could not find Python headers

I think the python header files are available, they are in ~/apps/Python-2.7.3/Include. How do I point configure at the right location? Adding this directory to my INCLUDE variable didn't seem to help. I can't seem to get configure to print a list of places it is looking, which would help me resolve this.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I can't remember the correct solution but I think you can specify prefix and other variables when you configure it, therefore it will recognize your own path.