diff --git a/pythonforandroid/recipe.py b/pythonforandroid/recipe.py
index 3cf8f9b..71fea95 100644
--- a/pythonforandroid/recipe.py
+++ b/pythonforandroid/recipe.py
@@ -825,7 +826,7 @@ class PythonRecipe(Recipe):
                 # for filen in built_files:
                 #     shprint(sh.cp, '-r', filen, join(site_packages_dir, split(filen)[-1]))
             elif self.call_hostpython_via_targetpython:
-                shprint(hostpython, 'setup.py', 'install', '-O2', _env=env,
+                shprint(hostpython,'-s', 'setup.py', 'install', '-O2', _env=env, ##KRL: Added -s here, as tipped on github by @antocuni. It does make things compile, but on running any binary on an Android VM we get an error on importing anything in _io.so (has unexpected e_machine: 40). 
                         *self.setup_extra_args)
             else:
                 hppath = join(dirname(self.hostpython_location), 'Lib',
@@ -836,7 +837,7 @@ class PythonRecipe(Recipe):
                                                    hpenv['PYTHONPATH'].split(':'))
                 else:
                     hpenv['PYTHONPATH'] = hppath
-                shprint(hostpython, 'setup.py', 'install', '-O2',
+                shprint(hostpython, '-s', 'setup.py', 'install', '-O2', 
                         '--root={}'.format(self.ctx.get_python_install_dir()),
                         '--install-lib=lib/python2.7/site-packages',
                         _env=hpenv, *self.setup_extra_args)
@@ -854,7 +855,7 @@ class PythonRecipe(Recipe):
     def install_hostpython_package(self, arch):
         env = self.get_hostrecipe_env(arch)
         real_hostpython = sh.Command(self.real_hostpython_location)
-        shprint(real_hostpython, 'setup.py', 'install', '-O2',
+        shprint(real_hostpython,'-s', 'setup.py', 'install', '-O2',
                 '--root={}'.format(dirname(self.real_hostpython_location)),
                 '--install-lib=Lib/site-packages',
                 _env=env, *self.setup_extra_args)
@@ -993,15 +996,20 @@ class CythonRecipe(PythonRecipe):
 
             if manually_cythonise:
                 self.cythonize_build(env=env)
-                shprint(hostpython, 'setup.py', 'build_ext', '-v', _env=env,
+                shprint(hostpython, 'setup.py', 'sdist','-v', _env=env,
                         _tail=20, _critical=True, *self.setup_extra_args)
             else:
                 info('First build appeared to complete correctly, skipping manual'
                      'cythonising.')
 
             print('stripping')
             build_lib = glob.glob('./build/lib*')
-            shprint(sh.find, build_lib[0], '-name', '*.o', '-exec',
+            info("build_lib={}".format(build_lib))
+            if len(build_lib)>0:
+	        shprint(sh.find, build_lib[0], '-name', '*.o', '-exec',
                     env['STRIP'], '{}', ';', _env=env)
             print('stripped!?')