What about a simple script, eg local-config which would take a package name as argument (or any generic description), read a config file given by the aforenamed package and create all necessary stuff in /usr/local/?
local-config tetex would create all /usr/local/ subdirs needed for tetex
local-config ghostscript would create /usr/local/lib/ghostscript/
{commmon,5.50}, etc.
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Jean-Christophe Dubacq

