FOUND IT! I added the line
print >> f, '\n'.join(sorted(sys.path)) and diff:ed the files produced from terminal/launcher. When using the launcher, changes to PYTHONPATH done in ~/.bashrc are not picked up, and I apparently had an old reference to /usr/lib/ python2.4 sitting in there. Removed it, reloaded .bashrc, plugin now works. The question still remains why gnome disregards ~/.bashrc, but that's a whole other topic. Thanks a bunch, you guys are ever so helpful. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
