force --install-layout=deb on systems where that makes sense?

[Lee Harr]

Is there a way to make distutils use --install-layout=deb
but only on systems where that makes sense?

I just noticed that if someone installs without that switch,
my app will not be able to find its data files, because
sys.prefix = /usr  but the installation is actually in to
/usr/local


I suppose most people here will advise that I abandon
distutils and use something more reasonable. I am open
to that, but I went down this path because of stdeb and
the ability to do python setup.py bdist_deb
So if you can suggest some method that can also generate
a .deb file easily I am listening.