Cross compiling (i386 from amd64) with distutils

[Jason]

My situation is this: I have a Diamond Systems single-board computer
with a
matching GPIO board. DS have a library for controlling the GPIO
board... but
it's a static library (libdscud-6.02.a) with an accompanying header
(dscud.h).
I'd like to create a Python extension to use the device.

The architecture of the SBC is 486, and it runs Debian Squeeze/Grip.
While it
is possible to develop on it directly, I'd rather use my desktop
machine
(Debian Squeeze, amd64).

If I write a simple C program to control the device, I'd include the
header
file and cross-compile it like so:

    gcc -m32 -march=i386 -lpthread -I/usr/local/dscud-6.02 -o dio
dio.c \
        /usr/local/dscud-6.02/libdscud-6.02.a

To get myself started with the Python extension, I've basically taken
the
"noddy" demo[1] and thrown in a function call from the DSC library
just to see
if I can get something to build.

My distutils setup.py looks like:

----
from distutils.core import setup, Extension

module1 = Extension('noddy',
            sources = ['src/noddy.c'],
            libraries = ['pthread'],
            include_dirs = ['/usr/local/dscud-6.02'],
            extra_objects = ['/usr/local/dscud-6.02/libdscud-6.02.a'],
            extra_compile_args = ['-m32', '-march=i386'])

setup(name = 'Noddy', version = '1.0', description = 'This is a demo
package',
      ext_modules = [module1])
----

This works fine on the target machine with "python setup.py build",
but when I
try it on my desktop machine, I get:

----
$ python setup.py build
running build
running build_ext
building 'noddy' extension
creating build
creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-2.6
creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-2.6/src
gcc -pthread -fno-strict-aliasing -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O2 -Wall
-Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -I/usr/local/dscud-6.02 -I/usr/include/
python2.6 -c
src/noddy.c -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-2.6/src/noddy.o -m32 -
march=i386
In file included from /usr/include/python2.6/Python.h:58,
                 from src/noddy.c:1:
/usr/include/python2.6/pyport.h:694:2: error: #error "LONG_BIT
definition
appears wrong for platform (bad gcc/glibc config?)."
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

----

So is it possible to get distutils to cross compile something like
this, and
if so, what am I missing? Or am I using the wrong tool for the job?

Target python ver. is 2.6. GCC is 4.4.5.

Cheers,
Jason

[1] http://docs.python.org/extending/newtypes.html