diff --git a/MANIFEST.in b/MANIFEST.in
index e4c3c29..98c6b34 100644
--- a/MANIFEST.in
+++ b/MANIFEST.in
@@ -26,6 +26,7 @@ exclude docs/man/*.1
 prune docs/attic
 prune docs/build
 prune docs/gh-pages
+prune docs/dist
 
 # Patterns to exclude from any directory
 global-exclude *~
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 06f10c2..f492018 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -154,35 +154,6 @@ if len(sys.argv) >= 2 and sys.argv[1] in ('sdist','bdist_rpm'):
                   'cd docs/man && gzip -9c pycolor.1 > pycolor.1.gz'),
                  ]
 
-    # Only build the docs if sphinx is present
-    try:
-        import sphinx
-    except ImportError:
-        pass
-    else:
-        # The Makefile calls the do_sphinx scripts to build html and pdf, so
-        # just one target is enough to cover all manual generation
-
-        # First, compute all the dependencies that can force us to rebuild the
-        # docs.  Start with the main release file that contains metadata
-        docdeps = ['IPython/core/release.py']
-        # Inculde all the reST sources
-        pjoin = os.path.join
-        for dirpath,dirnames,filenames in os.walk('docs/source'):
-            if dirpath in ['_static','_templates']:
-                continue
-            docdeps += [ pjoin(dirpath,f) for f in filenames
-                         if f.endswith('.txt') ]
-        # and the examples
-        for dirpath,dirnames,filenames in os.walk('docs/example'):
-            docdeps += [ pjoin(dirpath,f) for f in filenames
-                         if not f.endswith('~') ]
-        # then, make them all dependencies for the main html docs
-        to_update.append(
-            ('docs/dist/index.html',
-             docdeps,
-             "cd docs && make dist")
-            )
 
     [ target_update(*t) for t in to_update ]
 
diff --git a/setupbase.py b/setupbase.py
index cdc2eae..8803e76 100644
--- a/setupbase.py
+++ b/setupbase.py
@@ -288,7 +288,7 @@ def target_update(target,deps,cmd):
     command if target is outdated."""
 
     if target_outdated(target,deps):
-        system(cmd)
+        os.system(cmd)
 
 #---------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Find scripts