diff --git a/libdistopia/CMakeLists.txt b/libdistopia/CMakeLists.txt
index 23a7e58e..60062e58 100644
--- a/libdistopia/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/libdistopia/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -46,8 +46,8 @@ endforeach()
 
 # default case
 if(NOT DISTOPIA_MANUAL_SELECT_SIMD AND NOT DISTOPIA_DISPATCH AND NOT DISTOPIA_DISPATCH_MAX AND NOT DISTOPIA_DISPATCH_MANUAL)
-  message(STATUS "${Yellow}No CMake build options specified, defaulting to DISTOPIA_AUTO_SELECT_SIMD ${ColourReset}")
-  set(DISTOPIA_AUTO_SELECT_SIMD on)
+  message(STATUS "${Yellow}No CMake build options specified, defaulting to DISTOPIA_DISPATCH ${ColourReset}")
+  set(DISTOPIA_DISPATCH on)
 endif()
 
 
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index 65b6fbd4..45328d99 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 [options]
-cmake_args = []
+# cross compilation for dispatch is the default
+# comment this out to enable other command line cmake flags to be specified
+dispatch = True
 
 [versioneer]
 VCS = git
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 0a80046c..b011264e 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -1,12 +1,22 @@
 
 from skbuild import setup
 import versioneer
+import os
+
+description = "Fast distance calculations using explicitly vectorised SIMD"
+try:
+    readme_file = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)), "README.md")
+    with open(readme_file) as f:
+        long_description = f.read()
+except ImportError:
+    long_description = description
 
 setup(
     name="distopia",
     version=versioneer.get_version(),
     cmdclass=versioneer.get_cmdclass(),
-    description="Fast distance calculations using explicitly vectorised SIMD",
+    description=description,
+    long_description=long_description,
     author=['Hugo MacDermott-Opeskin', "Richard Gowers"],
     license="MIT",
     packages=['distopia'],