Jan> When installing a package, the package tools default to where Jan> xemacs-base is. Unfortunately that won't work if we are installing Jan> xemacs-base. Therefore the tools take (last late-packages). This will Jan> typically be the subdirectory as you mentioned. Jan> That should not be necessary. The most important thing is to get Jan> xemacs-base and mule-base in the right place after that the rest Jan> should just work. Ok, I moved the src directory to a different location, no longer under the packages/ directory. In addition, xemacs-base is already installed in /usr/local/src/xemacs/xemacs-21.2.9/packages/. Then I tried: M-x package-admin-add-binary-package jde-1.14-pkg.tar.gz This time it ended up in: /usr/local/src/xemacs/xemacs-21.2.9/packages/man/lisp/jde/... /usr/local/src/xemacs/xemacs-21.2.9/packages/man/pkginfo/MANIFEST.jde /usr/local/src/xemacs/xemacs-21.2.9/packages/man/etc/jde/... .../packages/man/ is still not the proper place.