Hello This is an issue which concerns both the auctex developement team and the xemacs team, hence my double posting. The default behaviour for a auctex installation using xemacs that is ./configure --with-xemacs=/usr/bin/xemacs has the result, that the files, which are generated by the make process, will be installed in infodir = ${packagedir}/info lispdir = ${packagedir}/lisp packagedir = /usr/share/xemacs21/xemacs-packages auctexdir= ${lispdir}/auctex I consider such a choice as *bad*. First it will need root privileges, second it will install in the directory where the _official_ xemacs pkg sits. So I suggest that the default value are: either the pkg directory is packagedir = /usr/share/xemacs21/site-packages Which still would need root privileges or the value is packagedir = ~/.xemacs/xemacs-packages. It is true that the INSTALLATION file says something about how to set the packagedir, that is to run ./configure --with-xemacs=/usr/bin/xemacs --with-packagedir=/DIR but in any case, the *default* behaviour should not be the one mention above. I suggest if ./configure --with-xemacs=/usr/bin/xemacs is executed, a message pops up saying, "you did not specify neither the packagedir nor the lispdir option". Besides the package generated this way *does not* include a MANIFEST file, so uninstall could be a little tricky, recall that the xemacs are installed according to the structure /lisp/packagename /man/packagename But not /packename/lisp /packename/man In the letter deleting the packagename directory would delete the installed files, in the former you have to go directory by directory. So that is where a MANIFEST file comes in handy (posted a while ago I simple function to delete the content of a 3rd party package by reading the MANIFEST file) I would appreciate any comments of the Xemacs development team on this issue. Thanks Uwe Brauer