what are the most popular building and packaging tools for python ??

[Steve]

Hi list,
       At work, we would shortly be starting a new project that would
be almost entirely (90%) written in python. Our development as well as
deployment would happen on linux (fedora and RHEL to be specific).
     We've had a similar project earlier for which we distributed only
the compiled python modules (the suits are yet to be enlightened about
the benefits of OSS). For that project we had a build structure which
not only compiled the py modules but also built the rpms. However this
was a humongous non-recursive make structure ...which incidentally
soon became unmaintainable. Now, we are looking for alternatives. We
are ready to consider not using make at all, however we need some
build tool which would work well with the other non-python source code
too. I have been looking at Distutils and Scons, both have their
advantages and disadvantages.
    Since I am still evaluating, I would welcome any suggestions or
personal experiences that the community here might have had in this
regard.

TIA,
Regards
Steve