diff --git a/autogen.sh b/autogen.sh
index 85bebe6..588976a 100755
--- a/autogen.sh
+++ b/autogen.sh
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/bash
 
 export srcdir="."
-${PYTHON} ${srcdir}/tools/build_makefile.py
+python ${srcdir}/tools/build_makefile.py
 autoreconf -i -Wall --no-recursive
diff --git a/tools/build_makefile.py b/tools/build_makefile.py
index ac290ad..a150170 100755
--- a/tools/build_makefile.py
+++ b/tools/build_makefile.py
@@ -250,8 +250,8 @@ def main():
     tmp = "EXTRA_DIST += "
     r = subprocess.check_output("git ls-tree --name-only -r HEAD".split())
     for line in r.splitlines():
-       if "share/qmckl/test_data/" in line:
-         tmp += " \\\n   " + line
+       if b"share/qmckl/test_data/" in line:
+         tmp += " \\\n   " + line.decode('utf8')
     tmp += "\n"
     output += tmp.split("\n")