Color curses and Python 2?

[Jim Dennis]

 I'm playing with the Debian Linux (x86) Python v.2 beta and
 I can't seem to get color curses working.

 A minimal working sample would be nice.  The examples in 
 the curses HOWTO at python.org are simply not working (wrt
 the color functions).  The only time I've gotten color
 curses funtions working under Python is when I compiled my
 own copy of the interpreter with a replacement/patched version
 of the curses module.  

 I thought I'd heard that color ncurses support would be included
 in 1.6.  Was it?  I still haven't seen a 1.6.x package
 available for Debian.  Is it something they put in 1.6 and 
 changed for the 2.x betas?  Why is this so difficult.  Is it
 so much to want ncurses/color support?  Do I really have to 
 go back to Perl for this?