I use pythonbrew, venv and pip mostly for python dev - I am a relative novice. I've spent some time trying to get graph-tool installed and have failed badly. I have downloaded the src (graph-tool-2.2.18) and can not ./configure . I am on Debian squeeze and have tried with apt-get's boost and with a built-from-source boost but always get the same error - as shown below. Versions of python and exact checks vary depending on environment and options to configure. Below is with a 2.7.2 python environment and this command "./configure --with-boost-python=/home/hleeney/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.a". Any help is greatly appreciated. =========================== Using python version: 2.6.6 =========================== checking for boostlib >= 1.38.0... yes checking whether the Boost::Python library is available... yes checking for exit in -l/home/hleeney/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.a... no checking for exit in -l/home/hleeney/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.a-py2.6... no checking for exit in -l/home/hleeney/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.a-2.6... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-/home/hleeney/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.a... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-/home/hleeney/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.a-py2.6... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-/home/hleeney/usr/local/lib/libboost_python.a-2.6... no checking for exit in -lboost_python... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-py2.6... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-2.6... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-mt... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-mt-py2.6... no checking for exit in -lboost_python-mt-2.6... no configure: error: No usable boost::python found