I rn Ubuntu 9.10 on 64-bit arch;
mloskot@dog:~$ uname -a
Linux dog 2.6.31-17-generic #54-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 10 17:01:44 UTC 2009 x86_64 GNU/Linux
and here is what I get for GEOS from current SVN trunk:
mloskot@dog:~/dev/geos/_svn/trunk$ svn info | grep Revision
Revision: 2836
mloskot@dog:~/dev/geos/_svn/trunk$ ./autogen.sh && ./configure --enable-python
...
checking for swig... /usr/bin/swig
checking for SWIG version... 1.3.36
configure: SWIG executable is '/usr/bin/swig'
configure: SWIG library directory is '/usr/share/swig1.3'
checking for python... /usr/bin/python
checking for python version... 2.6
checking for python platform... linux2
checking for python script directory... ${prefix}/lib/python2.6/site-packages
checking for python extension module directory... ${exec_prefix}/lib/python2.6/site-packages
checking for Python include path... /usr/include/python2.6
checking for Python library path... /usr/lib/python2.6/config
...
Could you please verify if current trunk configures for you correctly?