PyCXX does not offer a shared library, it is intended users of this package compile the sources into their extensions. The Debian (and Fedora) package offers a pkg-config file named PyCXX.pc which exports the installed location of the headers and sources required to build, do not hardcode the path into your files. Example: Copy /usr/share/doc/python-cxx-dev/examples/ into a writeable area from there you can compile an example by executing these commands: CFLAGS="$(pkg-config --cflags PyCXX) $(python-config --cflags)" SRC="$(pkg-config --variable=srcdir PyCXX)" g++ -fPIC $CFLAGS simple.cxx \ $SRC/cxxextensions.c $SRC/cxx_extensions.cxx \ $SRC/cxxsupport.cxx \ $SRC/IndirectPythonInterface.cxx \ -shared -o simple.so python test_simple.py