diff --git a/src/Makefile.am b/src/Makefile.am
index bf15623c..5b5f7aef 100644
--- a/src/Makefile.am
+++ b/src/Makefile.am
@@ -247,6 +247,23 @@ librecoll_la_LDFLAGS = -release $(VERSION) \
 
 librecoll_la_LIBADD = $(LIBXAPIAN) $(LIBICONV) $(X_LIBX11) $(LIBTHREADS)
 
+# There is probably a better way to do this. The KIO needs to be linked
+# with librecoll, but librecoll is installed into a non-standard place
+# (/usr/lib/recoll). Debian packaging has something against setting an
+# rpath on the kio (cause it's not the same package as the lib), so I don't
+# know how to link it dynamically. The other thing I don't know is how to
+# force automake to build a static lib with the PIC objects. So the
+# following target, which is only used from the KIO build, deletes any .a
+# and .so and rebuilds the .a with the pic objs (the kio build calls
+# configured --disable-static).
+# Of course this is very uncomfortably close to automake/libtool internals
+# and may not work on all systems.
+PicStatic: $(librecoll_la_OBJECTS)
+	rm -f .libs/librecoll.a
+	rm -f .libs/librecoll.so
+	libtool --mode=link gcc -g -O -o librecoll.la \
+                $(librecoll_la_OBJECTS)
+
 bin_PROGRAMS = recollindex
 if MAKECMDLINE
     bin_PROGRAMS += recollq
@@ -477,7 +494,8 @@ if MAKEQT
 all-local: recollqt
 recollqt: librecoll.la
 	(cd $(QTGUI); ${QMAKE} PREFIX=${prefix} recoll.pro)
-	$(MAKE) -C $(QTGUI) LFLAGS="$(LDFLAGS)" 
+	$(MAKE) -C $(QTGUI) LFLAGS="$(LDFLAGS)" prefix=$(prefix) \
+                exec_prefix=$(exec_prefix) libdir=$(libdir)
 clean-local: recollqt-clean
 recollqt-clean:
 	-$(MAKE) -C $(QTGUI) clean
diff --git a/src/configure.ac b/src/configure.ac
index 8c855854..28defa84 100644
--- a/src/configure.ac
+++ b/src/configure.ac
@@ -211,14 +211,7 @@ if test X$camelcaseEnabled = Xyes ; then
   AC_DEFINE(RCL_SPLIT_CAMELCASE, 1, [Split camelCase words])
 fi
 
-# Disable building the python module. This is built by default, because
-# it's really the easiest way to interface and extend recoll. It forces PIC
-# objects for everything (indexing performance impact: 1%), because it's
-# just not worth building the lib twice
-# You can still have a non-pic recoll with:
-#   configure --disable-python-module; make; make install;make clean
-#   configure; make; cd python/recoll; make install
-#
+# Disable building the python module.
 if test X$sys != XDarwin ; then
   AC_ARG_ENABLE(python-module,
     AC_HELP_STRING([--disable-python-module],
@@ -516,19 +509,21 @@ fi
 #echo X_CFLAGS "'$X_CFLAGS'" X_PRE_LIBS "'$X_PRE_LIBS'" X_LIBS \
 #      "'$X_LIBS'" X_LIBX11 "'$X_LIBX11'" X_EXTRA_LIBS "'$X_EXTRA_LIBS'"
 
-
-# We have to expand prefix in here, couldn't find a way to do it inside 
-# the qt gui .pro file or Makefile. This just means that you can't change
-# prefix at build time. It works at install time because we dont' use the
-# qtgui Makefile
+# For communicating the value of RECOLL_DATADIR to non-make-based
+# subpackages like python-recoll, we have to expand prefix in here, because
+# things like "datadir = ${prefix}/share" (which is what we'd get by
+# expanding @datadir@) don't mean a thing in Python... I guess we could
+# have a piece of shell-script text to be substituted into and executed by
+# setup.py for getting the value of pkgdatadir, but really...
 m_prefix=$prefix
 test "X$m_prefix" = "XNONE" && m_prefix=/usr/local
 m_datadir=${m_prefix}/share
-QTRECOLL_DATADIR=${m_datadir}/recoll
+RECOLL_DATADIR=${m_datadir}/recoll
 
 RCLVERSION=`cat VERSION`
 RCLLIBVERSION=$RCLVERSION
 
+AC_SUBST(RECOLL_DATADIR)
 AC_SUBST(X_CFLAGS)
 AC_SUBST(X_PRE_LIBS)
 AC_SUBST(X_LIBS)
@@ -542,19 +537,12 @@ AC_SUBST(LIBXAPIANSTATICEXTRA)
 AC_SUBST(LIBFAM)
 AC_SUBST(QMAKE)
 AC_SUBST(QTGUI)
-AC_SUBST(QTRECOLL_DATADIR)
 AC_SUBST(XAPIANCXXFLAGS)
-AC_SUBST(HAVE_MKDTEMP)
-AC_SUBST(NOQTMAKE)
-AC_SUBST(NOCMDLINE)
 AC_SUBST(QMAKE_ENABLE_WEBKIT)
 AC_SUBST(QMAKE_DISABLE_WEBKIT)
 AC_SUBST(QMAKE_ENABLE_ZEITGEIST)
 AC_SUBST(QMAKE_DISABLE_ZEITGEIST)
 AC_SUBST(LIBQZEITGEIST)
-AC_SUBST(NOPIC)
-AC_SUBST(NOTHREADS)
-AC_SUBST(NODYNLIB)
 AC_SUBST(RCLVERSION)
 AC_SUBST(RCLLIBVERSION)
 
@@ -563,7 +551,6 @@ AC_SUBST(RCLLIBVERSION)
 AC_CONFIG_FILES(Makefile)
 AC_CONFIG_FILES(common/rclversion.h)
 AC_CONFIG_FILES(python/recoll/setup.py)
-AC_CONFIG_FILES(recollinstall)
 AC_CONFIG_FILES(sampleconf/recoll.conf)
 
 AC_OUTPUT
diff --git a/src/kde/kioslave/kio_recoll/CMakeLists.txt b/src/kde/kioslave/kio_recoll/CMakeLists.txt
index 2a2700bc..c8dbd240 100644
--- a/src/kde/kioslave/kio_recoll/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/src/kde/kioslave/kio_recoll/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -16,14 +16,11 @@ set(rcltop ${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/../../../)
 
 # Execute recoll configuration to create autoconfig.h and version.h and
 # generate a PIC lib
-execute_process(COMMAND ${rcltop}/configure --disable-qtgui --disable-x11mon --enable-pic --prefix=${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX} --mandir=${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/man
+execute_process(COMMAND ${rcltop}/configure --disable-static --disable-qtgui --disable-x11mon --prefix=${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX} --mandir=${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/share/man
 		WORKING_DIRECTORY ${rcltop}
 )
-execute_process(COMMAND /bin/sh mkMake
-		WORKING_DIRECTORY ${rcltop}/lib
-)
 
-link_directories(${rcltop}/lib ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib)
+link_directories(${rcltop}/.libs ${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib)
 
 include_directories (${CMAKE_SOURCE_DIR} ${CMAKE_BINARY_DIR} ${KDE4_INCLUDES}
   ${rcltop}/aspell 
@@ -52,21 +49,16 @@ ENDIF(PTHREAD_IN_LIBPTHREAD)
 # Had the idea to add e.g. /usr/lib/recoll to the rpath so that the dyn lib 
 # will be found at run time. But this does not seem to work with debian 
 # which strips RPATH by default (I think there is a way for libs in app-specific
-# paths but I did not find it. Link with the .a instead.
+# paths but I did not find it). Link with the .a instead.
 #SET(CMAKE_INSTALL_RPATH "${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/lib/recoll")
 
 kde4_add_plugin(kio_recoll ${kio_recoll_SRCS})
 
-add_custom_target(parser
-                 COMMAND make wasaparse.tab.cpp
-                 WORKING_DIRECTORY ${rcltop}/query
-)
 add_custom_target(rcllib
-                 COMMAND make librecoll.a
-                 WORKING_DIRECTORY ${rcltop}/lib
+                 COMMAND make PicStatic
+                 WORKING_DIRECTORY ${rcltop}
 )
-add_dependencies(rcllib parser)
-add_dependencies(kio_recoll parser rcllib)
+add_dependencies(kio_recoll rcllib)
 
 target_link_libraries(kio_recoll recoll xapian z ${EXTRA_LIBS} ${KDE4_KIO_LIBS})
 
diff --git a/src/python/recoll/setup.py.in b/src/python/recoll/setup.py.in
index 23edb280..5a4b91c2 100644
--- a/src/python/recoll/setup.py.in
+++ b/src/python/recoll/setup.py.in
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ module1 = Extension('recoll',
                     define_macros = [('MAJOR_VERSION', '1'),
                                      ('MINOR_VERSION', '0'),
                                      ('UNAC_VERSION', '"1.0.7"'),
-                                     ('RECOLL_DATADIR', '"@QTRECOLL_DATADIR@"')
+                                     ('RECOLL_DATADIR', '"@RECOLL_DATADIR@"')
                                      ],
                     include_dirs = ['/usr/local/include',
                                     os.path.join(top, 'utils'), 
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ module2 = Extension('rclextract',
                     define_macros = [('MAJOR_VERSION', '1'),
                                      ('MINOR_VERSION', '0'),
                                      ('UNAC_VERSION', '"1.0.7"'),
-                                     ('RECOLL_DATADIR', '"@QTRECOLL_DATADIR@"')
+                                     ('RECOLL_DATADIR', '"@RECOLL_DATADIR@"')
                                      ],
                     include_dirs = ['/usr/local/include',
                                     os.path.join(top, 'utils'),