When I make a package and install it as:

$ ./configure --prefix=/home/pkgmanager/builddir
$ make
$ make install
$ cd /home/pkgmanager/builddir
$ makepkg packagename.tgz
$ installpkg packagename.tgz

it cretes a copy of all packges (tgz's) in my root folder. How do I stop that? I am sure they are meant to go elsewhere..

thanks!

I'm not sure if I understand your problem completely (copy of all packages in root folder). But I noticed that you use another "configure" and "make install" approach than it is used in the official Slackware build scripts.
I thought until now that you have to give configure the prefix where the files should be installed with an unaltered "make install" (--prefix=/usr/bin) and not where they shall go temporarily for packageing. On the other hand the official build scripts use the DESTDIR option with "make install" (for example "make install DESTDIR=/home/pkgmanager/builddir") to solve this.

I hope this helps in any way.

Thanks!!, Yes, that kinda helps. The method I used to create packages, is one of the options I read about. I am trying to figure out how to build proper packages, and I was looking for a simple way.

Let me see if I get this right:
you are suggesting I do a normal "./configure", then
make
make install DESTDIR=/home/pkgmanager/builddir
..and this will install the packages in the right place, and the build area, to make a tgz?
I guess I am confused about having to "install" twice. does "make install" actually install it, or does it just prepare the package so I can use "makepkg"?
After installing the tgz I made, can I remove the p. installed with make install? maybe that's the problem!?

Dankeschoen!

Yes, you can build many packages like that. But there are exceptions.

make install DESTDIR ... will not "install" in the special meaning that you can use the program after doing this. It is "blind" about where to install.
So the idea is, as I understood it, to create a clean place to build the package, let make install copy all files there (it will build folders like usr, etc, usr/share etc. as needed) and leave you the freedom to add additional stuff like a description or even a file to list dependencies. Then you call makepkg from within the "clean" folder and it creates the pkg and handles the files -- so the build package will have relative paths,for example usr/share instead of /usr/share. installpkg will then extract the files relative to the root folder / so that the files will actually be copied to /usr/share during the call of installpkg.

There are exceptions, like some programs that use qmake instead of ./configure or that just build one binary and may not have a rule to install it in the system. But most programs should be fine to compile the given way.
EDIT: To illustrate this: A few days ago I tried to compile tuxcards from source. But it resisted to take any prefix or DESTDIR. So the first step was to call qmake like this: "qmake INSTALL_ROOT=$PKG tuxcards.pro" where $PKG was a path like /tmp/pkg-tuxcards.

I think you should maybe look at an original buildscript from Patrick Volkerding. On the third and fourth CD there are the scripts, or get it from a Slackware mirror site.
Another good source of information might be this thread (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi....php?t=365655).

If you look through the scripts you will see that there is not much "magic" but the process of building a package is rather straight forward. They include some extras like correcting wrong permissions, gzipping uncompressed manpages, add some docs like the ChangeLog and the License ...

hey thanks! that helps a great Deal. That clears up any questions I had left!

`grazias