Building Python 2.4 with icc and processor-specific optimizations

[Michael Hoffman]

Just out of curiosity, I was wondering if anyone has
compiled Python 2.4 with the Intel C Compiler and its
processor specific optimizations. I can build it fine
with OPT="-O3" or OPT="-xN" but when I try to combine
them I get this as soon as ./python is run:

"""
case $MAKEFLAGS in \
*-s*)  CC='icc -pthread' LDSHARED='icc -pthread -shared' OPT='-DNDEBUG -O3 -xN' ./python -E ./setup.py -q build;; \
*)  CC='icc -pthread' LDSHARED='icc -pthread -shared' OPT='-DNDEBUG -O3 -xN' ./python -E ./setup.py build;; \
esac
'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
Traceback (most recent call last):
   File "./setup.py", line 6, in ?
     import sys, os, getopt, imp, re
   File "/usr/local/src/Python-2.4/Lib/os.py", line 130, in ?
     raise ImportError, 'no os specific module found'
ImportError: no os specific module found
make: *** [sharedmods] Error 1
"""

Also, if I run ./python, I have this interesting result:

"""
$ ./python
'import site' failed; use -v for traceback
Python 2.4 (#34, Mar 12 2005, 18:46:28)
[GCC Intel(R) C++ gcc 3.0 mode] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
 >>> import sys
 >>> sys.builtin_module_names
('__main__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', '__builtin__', 'exceptions', 'gc', 'gc')
"""

Whoa--what's going on? Any ideas?

-- 
Michael Hoffman