Correctly building local python3, with bz2 support

I am trying to build a local version of python3 (specifically python3.7, but same issue with 3.6.6), but am running into problems with linking to some C libraries and/or headers (at least that is what I think the problem is).

I am able to build python3.7, but run into problems with bzip2 (but I suspect there will be other system libraries that I am missing an not aware of). This manifests itself when trying to import various packages/modules that require it as an import error:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named '_bz2'

From this stackoverflow question - Ask Question - it appears that I have built python without the right bz2 headers. The python build itself does not fail.

The specific question is how to build a local version of python with bz2? More generally, the question is how to properly link to system libraries? (since there may be others I have not encountered errors with)

In terms of what I have tried - I found this (oldish) question - How do you assign bz2 to an altinstall of python? and this more recent question Compiling bz2 support in python2 and tried a few things based off these.

First problem I ran into is actually finding the right libraries etc to link (the solution in the above question suggests to set CFLAGS="-I/path/to/bz2/include" and LDFLAGS="-L/path/to/bz2/lib"). Presumably these are on my system somewhere (ubuntu 16.04), since the system installs of python2.7 and python3.5 have no issues with bzip2.

I found libbz2.so.1 (and some others in) /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ - but the folders didn't seem to follow the pattern of the example/answer above. As such, I built a new local version of bz2 (in .bzp in my local folder) and then tried linking to that when I tried to build python3.7, using the following:

./configure --prefix=/home/user/.localpython CFLAGS="-I/home/user/.bz2/include" LDFLAGS="-L/home/user/.bz2/lib"

I also tried a more generic configuration (which was loosely based off Compile Python with bz2 support, linked to in the second article above.)

./configure --prefix=/home/user/.python CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include" LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib"

(both of which were unsuccessful)

Any pointers, tips etc greatly appreciated - thanks in advance!

from Correctly building local python3, with bz2 support