Sorry, I couldn't resist answering your bullet points. I think it is ok since my answers are kind of non-answers:
* You probably don't need to create eggs, hence you probably don't need to know * I don't really understand the second bullet. Of course you need to test everything, always. But I still don't understand what you mean by "with setup.py or test the normal way on the command line" * Use none of those. Create a source tarball with python setup.py sdist, and if you can't remember the PyPI commands just upload the file with your browser. * You probably don't need a MANIFEST.in
Finally, I bet more than half of your issues are with distutils and not setuptools specific.
Comment
Sorry, I couldn't resist answering your bullet points. I think it is ok since my answers are kind of non-answers:
* You probably don't need to create eggs, hence you probably don't need to know
* I don't really understand the second bullet. Of course you need to test everything, always. But I still don't understand what you mean by "with setup.py or test the normal way on the command line"
* Use none of those. Create a source tarball with python setup.py sdist, and if you can't remember the PyPI commands just upload the file with your browser.
* You probably don't need a MANIFEST.in
Finally, I bet more than half of your issues are with distutils and not setuptools specific.