Malcolm Box <malcolm-xemacs(a)brownale.demon.co.uk&gt; writes: On my last build (21.2b13) I downloaded the source, xemacs-base, dired and efs. That was sufficient for the package interface to work. The package interface is *wonderful*, by the way, but not yet trouble-free for me. To get it working I had to make a change in package-admin-default-install-function: ; (if (shell-command (concat "gunzip -c " filename " | tar xvf -") buf) (if (shell-command (concat "cd " default-directory "; gunzip -c " filename " | tar xvf -") buf) ie the default-directory var seems not to affect shell-command's working directory. Would there be anything wrong with bundling the minimum package set required for package installation, with the source ? It would make things a lot simpler for first-time installers. I've done this several times now, studied the docs each time, and I still don't understand the whole issue of configuring initial packages. Maybe that's a separate issue. -Simon