The best way is going to convince deb packagers to include the egg info so that setuptools can see that the package is in place. Each package comes with its own meta-data.
Indeed, this looks like the right way (tm), but in the meantime wouldn't it be reasonable to include a transition mechanism?
I'm certain Fedora will be heading in this direction.
I'll try to see if there is something pending for debian (python-setuptools is part of testing, so...) [...dig dig dig...] Yuck, I hope to find something more positive than that: <http://mail.python.org/pipermail/distutils-sig/2005-November/005470.html> :-( Frédéric -- Frédéric Gobry Infoscience SISB / EPFL Tel: +41216932288 http://people.epfl.ch/frederic.gobry