diff --git a/setup/__init__.py b/setup/__init__.py
index 6ff26e01cd..0ddb5931c3 100644
--- a/setup/__init__.py
+++ b/setup/__init__.py
@@ -296,3 +296,9 @@ def installer_names(include_source=True):
         yield f'{base}-{__version__}-{arch}.txz'
     if include_source:
         yield f'{base}-{__version__}.tar.xz'
+
+
+@lru_cache
+def manual_build_dir():
+    # cant use tempfile.gettempdir() as calibre.startup overrides it
+    return os.path.join('/tmp', 'user-manual-build')
diff --git a/setup/publish.py b/setup/publish.py
index d6d123b645..7142c84d1d 100644
--- a/setup/publish.py
+++ b/setup/publish.py
@@ -11,10 +11,9 @@ import os
 import shutil
 import subprocess
 import sys
-import tempfile
 import time
 
-from setup import Command, __version__, installer_names, require_clean_git, require_git_master
+from setup import Command, __version__, installer_names, manual_build_dir, require_clean_git, require_git_master
 from setup.parallel_build import create_job, parallel_build
 
 
@@ -180,7 +179,7 @@ class Manual(Command):
         )
 
     def run(self, opts):
-        tdir = self.j(tempfile.gettempdir(), 'user-manual-build')
+        tdir = manual_build_dir()
         if os.path.exists(tdir):
             shutil.rmtree(tdir)
         os.mkdir(tdir)
diff --git a/setup/upload.py b/setup/upload.py
index c2ac8fd6cb..ca45522b75 100644
--- a/setup/upload.py
+++ b/setup/upload.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ import subprocess
 import sys
 import time
 from subprocess import check_call
-from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile, gettempdir, mkdtemp
+from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile, mkdtemp
 from zipfile import ZipFile
 
 from polyglot.builtins import iteritems
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ if __name__ == '__main__':
     d = os.path.dirname
     sys.path.insert(0, d(d(os.path.abspath(__file__))))
 
-from setup import Command, __appname__, __version__, installer_names
+from setup import Command, __appname__, __version__, installer_names, manual_build_dir
 
 DOWNLOADS = '/srv/main/downloads'
 HTML2LRF = 'calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/demo'
@@ -343,7 +343,7 @@ class UploadUserManual(Command):  # {{{
         for x in glob.glob(self.j(path, '*')):
             self.build_plugin_example(x)
 
-        srcdir = self.j(gettempdir(), 'user-manual-build', 'en', 'html') + '/'
+        srcdir = self.j(manual_build_dir(), 'en', 'html') + '/'
         check_call(
             ' '.join(
                 ['rsync', '-zz', '-rl', '--info=progress2', srcdir, 'main:/srv/manual/']