[Matplotlib-users] How to build a matplotlib RPM with gtk backend support?

Hello,

I build RPMs to distribute matplotlib to our local RedHat 6 machines.
The procedure I use is simply

    python setup.py bdist_rpm

This works fine until I attempt to include gtk support.  The problem
is that the bdist_rpm procedure creates a temporary shell script file
which unset's the $DISPLAY variable.  This then causes setupext.py's
'import gtk' to fail due to not having $DISPLAY set and the build then
happens without gtk support.  If I hard code it in setup.cfg backend
section to True, then the build fails completely (as it should).

Am I missing something obvious to work around this?

daryl