Peter Brinkmann tells me that "shared libraries are tricky
to build, and choosing the right compiler options requires
some intimate knowledge of the operation system and the compiler,
so a single makefile is not going to work on all systems,
not even on all Linux systems.  Fortunately, there's a very
simple way to build shared libraries that extend python,"
using a "generic makefile" provided with Python 1.5 and later.
On each platform, the generic makefile has the right settings
to compile a shared library for that platform.
Peter was kind enough to write scripts to compile SnapPea
using the "generic makefile".  Here are his instructions:

1. Create a directory, say SnapPea, and unpack your two tar files
(kernel.tar and SnapPeaPython.tar) in this directory.

2. Move "Setup.in" and "inst" from SnapPeaPython/installation/
to the parent SnapPea directory.

3. Type 'inst' at the prompt. This will give you a list of files
called 'Makefile.pre.in'. These files are the generic makefiles I
mentioned above. On large, distributed systems, there'll be more
than one. In this case, pick the appropriate file for the system
you're using and copy it into the same directory.

4. Type 'inst' once more. This will start the build, and if nothing
goes wrong, you'll find the library 'SnapPeaC.so' in the directory
SnapPeaPython.

SnapPea is now ready to use.