Oh, wow. Thanks for all the insights! Since there just wasn't a standard solution for that in the form of sys.platlibdir before 3.9, I guess I should better check the downstream version of CPython sources used by Gentoo directly. The fact that Fedora and OpenSUSE use the same layout is also very helpful.

On Mon, Oct 5, 2020 at 11:57 AM Victor Stinner <vstinner@python.org> wrote:
FYI Python 3.9 has a new sys.platlibdir to choose between "lib" and
"lib64". Fedora and OpenSUSE use /usr/lib64 directory on 64-bit
systems rather than /usr/lib.

On 64-bit Fedora, sys.platlibdir is set to lib64:

$ python3.9 -c 'import sys; print(sys.platlibdir)'
lib64

Commented (simplified) sys.path:

$ python3.9 -m site
sys.path = [
    (...)
    '/usr/lib64/python3.9',  # stdlib (pure Python)
    '/usr/lib64/python3.9/lib-dynload',  # stdlib (C extensions)
    (...)
    '/usr/lib64/python3.9/site-packages',
    '/usr/lib/python3.9/site-packages',  # RPM packages installed by dnf
]
(...)

Fedora also uses sub-directories in /usr/local for packages installed
by pip (here are directories of Python 3.8):

    '/usr/local/lib64/python3.8/site-packages',
    '/usr/local/lib/python3.8/site-packages',

For curious people, see https://bugs.python.org/issue1294959 which
took 15 years to be fixed! Fedora and OpenSUSE maintained a large
downstream stream for at least 10 years :-) I added sys.platlibdir to
remove this downstream change.

Victor

Le sam. 3 oct. 2020 à 16:46, Mikhail Golubev via Python-Dev
<python-dev@python.org> a écrit :
>
> Hi everyone!
>
> First of all, sorry for bringing up, perhaps, a trivial matter, but since it's about the sources I guess it's better to ask it here.
>
> I'm investigating a curious problem caused by the fact that in a user's virtualenv, created with the standard "venv" module, "lib64" directory, traditionally symlinked to "lib", gets included in sys.path
> instead of "lib" itself.
>
> ```
> $ python -msite
>
> sys.path = [
>     '/current/working/directory'
>     '/usr/lib64/python36.zip',
>     '/usr/lib64/python3.6',
>     '/usr/lib64/python3.6/lib-dynload',
>     '/path/to/venv/lib64/python3.6/site-packages',
> ]
> ```
>
> The user is on Gentoo, and, though the venv's layout is exactly the same, it's different from the typical result on a Debian-based distribution where it's the original "lib" in sys.path, not its "lib64" link. I'm wondering what's controlling this behavior. Modules/getpath.c doesn't mention architecture-dependent lib directories anywhere, at least at first glance. Could someone please give me a hint about where to look in the sources or, maybe, which build options are affecting this?
>
> Thanks a lot!
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--
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--
Mikhail Golubev
Software Developer
JetBrains
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The drive to develop