alternative to distutilsextra that can be inserted into setup.py
based on https://davesteele.github.io/development/2015/12/11/add-i18n-to-setup-py/

diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 412527b..2e79447 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -20,13 +20,11 @@
 
 import os
 import sys
+import shutil
 
 from glob import glob
 from setuptools import setup
-
-import DistUtilsExtra.command.build_extra
-import DistUtilsExtra.command.build_i18n
-import DistUtilsExtra.command.clean_i18n
+from setuptools.command.build import build
 
 # to update i18n .mo files (and merge .pot file into .po files) run on Linux:
 #   tx pull -a --minimum-perc=5
@@ -43,6 +41,48 @@ with open('mate-tweak') as f:
 
 PROGRAM_VERSION = __VERSION__
 
+podir = "po"
+pos = [x for x in os.listdir(podir) if x[-3:] == ".po"]
+langs = sorted([os.path.split(x)[-1][:-3] for x in pos])
+
+def mkmo(lang):
+    outpath = os.path.join("build/mo", lang, "LC_MESSAGES")
+    if os.path.exists(outpath):
+        shutil.rmtree(outpath)
+    os.makedirs(outpath)
+
+    inpath = os.path.join(podir, lang + ".po")
+
+    cmd = "msgfmt %s -o %s/%s.mo" % (inpath, outpath, "mate-tweak")
+    os.system(cmd)
+
+def merge_i18n():
+    cmd = "LC_ALL=C intltool-merge -u -c ./po/.intltool-merge-cache ./po "
+    for infile in (x[:-3] for x in os.listdir('.') if x[-3:] == '.in'):
+        print("Processing %s.in to %s" % (infile, infile))
+
+        if 'desktop' in infile:
+            flag = '-d'
+        elif 'schema' in infile:
+            flag = '-s'
+        elif 'xml' in infile:
+            flag = '-x'
+        else:
+            flag = ''
+
+        if flag:
+            os.system("%s %s %s.in %s" % (cmd, flag, infile, infile))
+
+class custom_build(build):
+    def run(self, *args):
+        build.run(self, *args)
+
+        for lang in langs:
+            mkmo(lang)
+
+        merge_i18n()
+        data_files.extend(datafilelist('{prefix}/share/locale'.format(prefix=sys.prefix), 'build/mo'))
+
 def datafilelist(installbase, sourcebase):
     datafileList = []
     for root, subFolders, files in os.walk(sourcebase):
@@ -62,12 +102,9 @@ data_files = [
     ('{prefix}/share/polkit-1/actions'.format(prefix=sys.prefix), ['data/org.mate.mate-tweak.policy',]),
     ('{prefix}/lib/mate-tweak'.format(prefix=sys.prefix), ['data/mate-tweak.ui', 'util/mate-tweak-helper']),
 ]
-data_files.extend(datafilelist('{prefix}/share/locale'.format(prefix=sys.prefix), 'build/mo'))
 
 cmdclass ={
-    "build" : DistUtilsExtra.command.build_extra.build_extra,
-    "build_i18n" :  DistUtilsExtra.command.build_i18n.build_i18n,
-    "clean": DistUtilsExtra.command.clean_i18n.clean_i18n,
+    "build" : custom_build,
 }
 
 setup(