diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix
index 5220d4a2e3e5..287088f616e7 100644
--- a/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/libxml2/default.nix
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 assert pythonSupport -> python != null;
 
-stdenv.mkDerivation ({
+stdenv.mkDerivation {
   name = "libxml2-2.7.3";
 
   src = fetchurl {
@@ -10,29 +10,18 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation ({
     sha256 = "01bgxgvl0gcx97zmlz9f2ivgbiv86kqbs9l93n2cbxywv1pc4jd5";
   };
 
-  configureFlags = ''
-    ${if pythonSupport then "--with-python=${python}" else ""}
+  configureFlags = ''                                                  
+    ${if pythonSupport then "--with-python=${python}" else ""}         
   '';
-
-  patchPhase = ''
-    sed -e "s^pythondir=.*$^pythondir=$out/lib/python2.4/site-packages^" -i configure
-  '';
-
-  passthru = {inherit pythonSupport;};
-
+  
   propagatedBuildInputs = [zlib];
 
-  postInstall = ''
-    ensureDir $out/nix-support
-    cp ${./setup-hook.sh} $out/nix-support/setup-hook
-  '';
+  setupHook = ./setup-hook.sh;
+
+  passthru = {inherit pythonSupport;};
 
   meta = {
     homepage = http://xmlsoft.org/;
     description = "A XML parsing library for C";
   };
-} // (if pythonSupport then {
-  preConfigure = ''
-    sed -e "s^pythondir=.*$^pythondir=$(toPythonPath $out)^" < configure.old > configure
-  '';
-} else {}))
+}