The Distutils Cookbook collects various useful recipes and tips for using the Distutils.
When creating new recipes, use the RecipeTemplate.
DistutilsInstallDataScattered -- make resource data-files get installed in the same directory tree as the Python files that depend on them
DistutilsAutoDataDiscovery -- specify data-files to install with smart_install_data recursively by specifying only a top-level directory
DistutilsAutoPackageDiscovery -- specify packages to install recursively by specifying only the top-level package
Jeremy Hylton has written a Python Package Index (PyPI) tutorial. This covers the use of the distutils register command.
DistutilsWininstFilename -- provide customisation point for altering the filename of bdist_wininst installer (such as to include numpy version information)