Hi,
I read some time ago a thread about calibre and python 2.7.1 on opensuse 11.4, unfortunately I deleted that e-mail and missed the thread.
So, calibre only need python 2.7.1 for "calibre/src/calibre/ebooks/metadata/sources/cli.py", more specifically a "option parser" problem reported here:
I made a crazy modification here (not a patch, actually a broken program) that consists of eliminating this parser.
Since most users do not use the calibre's CLI interface, that should be OK as (ugly) a work around until python 2.7.1 is on opensuse 11.4...
... or some more skilled than I could made a real patch :-)
Anyways, I'm running it here and so far I could use all of calibre's GUI features.
-Filipe