I've found the problem. The documentation at http://www.python.org/doc/2.4.2/dist/dist.html suggests the existence of two additional directives: install_data and install_headers.
The cascading style sheets, templates, and some other things in docutils are listed as data files in setup.py, and so they will be installed under install_data. Before, it was in a system directory, but it may be redirected to my local directory like so. (I haven't had need of the install_headers instruction yet) [install] install_lib = ~/Library/Python/$py_version_short/site-packages install_data = ~/Library/Python/$py_version_short/site-packages # install_headers = install_scripts = ~/bin Happy non-root installing, Daniel Holth
