In case nobody has noticed it, in ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS, when I first import gtk and then list the modules using help, the segmentation fault does not occur. I suspect it has to do with the static/dynamic nature of the module being visible. See the terminal capture below as evidence: $ python Python 2.7.3 (default, Sep 26 2013, 20:03:06) [GCC 4.6.3] on linux2 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> import gtk /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/__init__.py:57: GtkWarning: could not open display warnings.warn(str(e), _gtk.Warning) >>> help('modules') Please wait a moment while I gather a list of all available modules... ANSI _codecs_jp formencode profile ArgImagePlugin _codecs_kr fpectl pstats BaseHTTPServer _codecs_tw fpformat pty Bastion _collections fractions pwd BdfFontFile _csv ftplib pxssh BmpImagePlugin _ctypes functools py_compile BufrStubImagePlugin _ctypes_test future_builtins pyclbr CDROM _curses gc pycurl CGIHTTPServer _curses_panel gconf pydoc Canvas _dbus_bindings gdbm pydoc_data CommandNotFound _dbus_glib_bindings gencat pyexpat ConfigParser _elementtree genericpath pyflakes ContainerIO _functools genevents pygst Cookie _hashlib genfind pygtk Crypto _heapq gengrep pyinotify CurImagePlugin _hotshot genlog pynotify DLFCN _imaging genmessages query404 DcxImagePlugin _imagingcms genmulti quopri Dialog _imagingft genopen random DistUpgrade _imagingmath genpickle re DocXMLRPCServer _io genqueue readline EpsImagePlugin _json genreceive realtime404 ExifTags _locale genshutdown receivefrom FSM _lsprof gentrace recvcount FileDialog _multibytecodec getopt redict FitsStubImagePlugin _multiprocessing getpass repr FixTk _pyio gettext resource FliImagePlugin _random gi retuple FontFile _snack gio rexec Formtools _socket glib rfc822 FpxImagePlugin _sqlite3 glob rlcompleter GMenuSimpleEditor _sre gmenu robotparser GbrImagePlugin _ssl gnomekeyring robots GdImageFile _strptime gobject runpy GifImagePlugin _struct google runservers GifImagePluginH _symtable grp sched GimpGradientFile _testcapi gst screen GimpPaletteFile _threading_local gstoption select GnuPGInterface _warnings gtk sendto GribStubImagePlugin _weakref gtkunixprint serial HTMLParser _weakrefset gtweak sets HTMLcalendar abc gzip setuptools HTMLcolors aifc hashlib sgmllib HTMLgen antigravity heapq sha HTMLutil anydbm hmac shelve Hdf5StubImagePlugin apachelog hosts shlex IN apparmor hotshot shutdownevt IcnsImagePlugin apport html5lib shutdownsignal IcoImagePlugin apport_python_hook htmlentitydefs shutil ImImagePlugin apt htmllib signal Image apt_inst httplib simplejson ImageChops apt_pkg httplib2 site ImageCms aptdaemon ihooks sitecustomize ImageColor aptsources imaplib smart ImageDraw argparse imghdr smbc ImageDraw2 array imgsize smtpd ImageEnhance ast imp smtplib ImageFile asynchat importlib snack ImageFileH asyncore imputil sndhdr ImageFileIO atexit inspect socket ImageFilter atk invest softwareproperties ImageFont audiodev io spwd ImageGL audioop itertools sqlite3 ImageGrab axi json sre ImageH barchart keyring sre_compile ImageMath base64 keyword sre_constants ImageMode bdb landscape sre_parse ImageOps binascii language_support_pkgs ssl ImagePalette binhex largefiles stat ImagePaletteH bisect largest statvfs ImagePath broadcast launchpadlib storelast ImageQt broadcast_reprise lazr string ImageSequence bs4 lib2to3 stringold ImageShow bsddb libxml2 stringprep ImageStat bytesgen libxml2mod strop ImageTransform bz2 linecache struct ImageWin cPickle linesdir subprocess ImtImagePlugin cProfile linuxaudiodev sunau IptcImagePlugin cStringIO locale sunaudio JpegImagePlugin cairo logcoroutine symbol JpegImagePluginH calendar logging symtable LanguageSelector cgi lsb_release sys McIdasImagePlugin cgitb lxml sysconfig MicImagePlugin chardet macpath syslog MimeWriter chunk macurl2path tabnanny MpegImagePlugin cmath mailbox tarfile MspImagePlugin cmd mailcap telnetlib NavLinks code makebig tempfile OleFileIO codecs mako termios OpenSSL codeop markupbase test PAM collections markupsafe textwrap PIL colorcube marshal this PSDraw colorsys math thread PaletteFile commands md5 threading PalmImagePlugin compileall mechanize thrsend PcdImagePlugin compiler mhlib time PcfFontFile computerjanitor mimetools timeit PcxImagePlugin configglue mimetypes tkColorChooser PdfImagePlugin consumer mimify tkCommonDialog PixarImagePlugin contextlib mmap tkFileDialog PngImagePlugin cookielib mod_python tkFont PngImagePluginH copy mod_pywebsocket tkMessageBox PpmImagePlugin copy_reg modulefinder tkSimpleDialog PsdImagePlugin crypt msgtest toaiff Queue csv multifile token ScrolledText ctypes multiprocessing tokenize SgiImagePlugin cups mutex trace SimpleDialog cupshelpers netrc traceback SimpleHTTPServer curl netsend ttk SimpleXMLRPCServer curses new tty SocketServer datetime nis turtle SpiderImagePlugin dbhash nntplib twisted StringIO dbm nongenlog types SunImagePlugin dbus ntpath ubuntu_sso TYPES deb822 nturl2path ubuntuone TarIO debconf numbers ufw TgaImagePlugin debian oauth unicodedata TiffImagePlugin debian_bundle opcode unittest TiffTags decimal operator urllib Tix defer optparse urllib2 Tkconstants difflib os urlparse Tkdnd dircache os2emxpath user Tkinter dirspec ossaudiodev uu UbuntuSystemService dis packagekit uuid UpdateManager distutils pango wadllib UserDict doctest pangocairo warnings UserList downloads parser wave UserString drv_libxml2 pdb weakref WalImageFile dsextras pep8 webbrowser WmfImagePlugin dumbdbm pexpect whichdb XVThumbImagePlugin dummy_thread pickle wsgiref XbmImagePlugin dummy_threading pickletools xapian XpmImagePlugin easy_install pip xdg _LWPCookieJar email pipes xdrlib _MozillaCookieJar encodings pkg_resources xml __builtin__ errno pkgutil xmllib __future__ exceptions platform xmlrpclib _abcoll fcntl plistlib xxsubtype _ast fdpexpect popen2 zeitgeist _bisect fieldmap poplib zipfile _bsddb filecmp posix zipimport _codecs fileinput posixfile zlib _codecs_cn fnmatch posixpath zope _codecs_hk follow pprint _codecs_iso2022 formatter problem_report Enter any module name to get more help. 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