Hi Folks: I posted ncbi2rpm, which will take the ncbi.tar.gz tarball, build it, turn it into an RPM (sitting under /opt to make the LSB folk happy). It is semi-specific to x86 at this moment, as I dont have access to an OS-X machine to play with it under. The environment requires autospec (http://freshmeat.net/releases/98493/) and can be pulled from http://scalableinformatics.com/downloads/ncbi2rpm.tar.gz . This beta is primarily to get the environment out there for people to beat on, tell me what is wrong with it, what they would like to see, and so forth. I did build a rather large RPM of the 2.2.5 NCBI tools using the gcc 3.2.1 compiler with it, at http://scalableinformatics.com/downloads/ncbitools-gcc3.2.1-2.2.5-1.i686.rpm . Please be aware that this RPM is about 46MB in size, and the web site has a small uplink pipe. Eventually, this environment will be used to build other tools as well (it is generic for building codes). I wanted to get feedback from the RPM builders out there, as well as those who have non-RPM packaging requirements, please help me understand what format works, and where it is described. The final cleaned up bits of this may appear in the biopkg effort. Joe -- Joseph Landman, Ph.D Scalable Informatics LLC, email: landman at scalableinformatics.com web : http://scalableinformatics.com phone: +1 734 612 4615