sysv_ipc | Sysv_ipc gives Python programs access to System V semaphores

Pip plays no role in how Python handles extension module imports. All that Python needs is the extension module file itself, provided it is in a format supported by your current OS, and that the file is in a directory on your sys.path search path.

Pip is only responsible for making sure the files that make up a project distribution end up in a sys.path location. The .dist-info directory you found is part of the package metadata, used by pip and importlib.metadata for things like uninstalling, dependency tracking and reporting. These files are not used when importing.

You haven’t shared exactly how you tried to import the extension module or how this failed so I can’t comment on what went wrong for you.

But when things work correctly, importing a module from a dynamically loaded shared object library works a lot like importing regular modules:

1. Python searches through all directories on the sys.path list for files and directories matching the imported name, using a PathFinder object. It knows to look for extension modules based on the file extension (the file extensions supported depend on your OS, see importlib.machinery.EXTENSION_SUFFIXES for a list).
2. If a file with an extension suffix is found that matches the imported name then the importlib.machinery.ExtensionFileLoader class is used to load the library.

Loading means: using an OS-dependent dynamic loading function to load the code in the file and then to access an entry point function (usually PyInit_) to get the module namespace. See the documentation on creating extension modules. For .so files the Python/dynload_shlib.c file implements the loader but there are other dynload_ implementations in the same directory. To load an .so file Python passes the file path (containing at least one / slash) to the dlopen() function.

As to what may have gone wrong in your case: you used a different Python interpreter from the one used to install the project with. Note that the extension module filename includes a string after the module name that identifies the Python ABI (Application Binary Interface):