diff --git a/sm5/CHANGELOG b/sm5/CHANGELOG
index 467e2685fe99d8c16e98dc3bd5ad7caae28da32c..b2965c3fc8f1e9b8f352b44e5558297a2eb87bdc 100644
--- a/sm5/CHANGELOG
+++ b/sm5/CHANGELOG
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 CHANGELOG for smartmontools
 
-$Id: CHANGELOG,v 1.405 2004/04/30 06:20:49 dpgilbert Exp $
+$Id: CHANGELOG,v 1.406 2004/05/04 21:23:40 ballen4705 Exp $
 
 The most recent version of this file is:
 http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/smartmontools/sm5/CHANGELOG?sortby=date&view=markup
@@ -30,6 +30,8 @@ NOTES FOR FUTURE RELEASES: see TODO file.
   [DG] move SCSI device temperature and start-stop log page output
        (smartctl) into --attributes section (was in --info section).
 
+  [GG] change default installation location to /usr/local
+
   [CF] Cygwin smartd: Fixed crash on access of SCSI devices after fork().
 
   [PW] Added TOSHIBA MK4018GAS and the following Maxtor drive families
diff --git a/sm5/INSTALL b/sm5/INSTALL
index cbf799b9aa0726631fd37af3eb7506bb7dc958fb..c871b092a5ba175633757d56a77e8ab11b91ab68 100644
--- a/sm5/INSTALL
+++ b/sm5/INSTALL
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 Smartmontools installation instructions
 =======================================
 
-$Id: INSTALL,v 1.44 2004/05/03 15:58:33 ballen4705 Exp $
+$Id: INSTALL,v 1.45 2004/05/04 21:23:40 ballen4705 Exp $
 
 Please also see the smartmontools home page:
 http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/
@@ -152,16 +152,17 @@ Table of contents:
 
     As shown (with no options to ./configure) this defaults to the
     following set of installation directories:   
-    --prefix=/usr
-    --sbindir=/usr/sbin
-    --sysconfdir=/etc
-    --mandir=/usr/share/man
-    --with-docdir=/usr/share/doc/smartmontools-VERSION
-    --with-initscriptdir=/etc/rc.d/init.d
+    --prefix=/usr/local
+    --sbindir=/usr/local/sbin
+    --sysconfdir=/usr/local/etc
+    --mandir=/usr/local/share/man
+    --with-docdir=/usr/local/share/doc/smartmontools-VERSION
+    --with-initscriptdir=/usr/local/etc/rc.d/init.d
     --disable-sample
 
-    These will overwrite existing "distribution" installations for Red
-    Hat, Slackware, and some other Linux distributions.
+    These will usually not overwrite existing "distribution" installations on
+    Linux Systems since the FHS reserves this area for use by the system
+    administrator.
 
     For different installation locations or distributions, simply add
     arguments to ./configure as shown in [4] below.
@@ -178,7 +179,8 @@ Note: Please send corrections/additions to:
 smartmontools-support@lists.sourceforge.net
 
 Debian:
-  ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
+  If you don't want to overwrite any distribution package, use:
+  ./configure
 
 Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS):
   ./configure --sbindir=/usr/local/sbin                               \
@@ -188,8 +190,6 @@ Filesystem Hierarchy Standard (FHS):
               --with-docdir=/usr/local/share/doc/smartmontools-VERSION
 
 Red Hat:
-  ./configure
-  OR EQUIVALENTLY
   ./configure --sbindir=/usr/sbin                               \
 	      --sysconfdir=/etc                                 \
 	      --mandir=/usr/share/man                           \
@@ -198,7 +198,7 @@ Red Hat:
 
 Slackware:
   If you don't want to overwrite any "distribution" package, use:
-  ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
+  ./configure
 
   Otherwise use:
   ./configure --sbindir=/usr/sbin                               \
@@ -393,31 +393,26 @@ it in a wide window.
 
 OPTIONS              DEFAULT                                      AFFECTS
 -------              -------                                      -------
---prefix             [NO VALUE]                                   Please see below
---sbindir            /usr/sbin                                    Directory for smartd/smartctl executables;
+--prefix             /usr/local                                   Please see below
+--sbindir            ${prefix}/sbin                               Directory for smartd/smartctl executables;
                                                                   Contents of smartd/smartctl man pages
---mandir             /usr/share/man                               Directory for smartctl/smartd/smartd.conf man pages
---sysconfdir         /etc                                         Directory for smartd.conf;
+--mandir             ${prefix}/share/man                          Directory for smartctl/smartd/smartd.conf man pages
+--sysconfdir         ${prefix}/etc                                Directory for smartd.conf;
                                                                   Contents of smartd executable;
                                                                   Contents of smartd/smartd.conf man pages;
                                                                   Directory for rc.d/init.d/smartd init script
 --with-initscriptdir  ${sysconfdir}/init.d/rc.d                   Location of init scripts       
---with-docdir	      $(prefix)/usr/share/doc/smartmontools-5.X   Location of the documentation
+--with-docdir	      ${prefix}/share/doc/smartmontools-5.X       Location of the documentation
 --enable-sample	      --disable-sample				  Adds the string '.sample' to the names of the smartd.conf file and the smartd RC file
 
-
-
-If you set --prefix and NONE of the other four variables, for example:
-./configure --prefix=/home/joe
-then the DEFAULT paths will ALL have prefix appended to them.
-
-For example, if you set --prefix=/home/joe and none of the other four
+Here's an example:
+If you set --prefix=/home/joe and none of the other four
 variables then the different directories that are used would be:
---sbindir             /home/joe/usr/sbin
---mandir              /home/joe/usr/share/man
+--sbindir             /home/joe/sbin
+--mandir              /home/joe/share/man
 --sysconfdir          /home/joe/etc
 --with-initscriptdir  /home/joe/etc/init.d/rc.d
---with-docdir	      /home/joe/usr/share/doc/smartmontools-5.X
+--with-docdir	      /home/joe/doc/smartmontools-5.X
 
 This is useful for test installs in a harmless subdirectory somewhere.
 
@@ -455,16 +450,14 @@ no other options specified (see above for details)
 Case 1:
 --enable-sample provided
 ==> Files installed are:
-	/etc/smartd.conf.sample
-	/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd.sample
+	/usr/local/etc/smartd.conf.sample
+	/usr/local/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd.sample
 
 Case 2:
 --disable-sample provided or parameter left out
 ==> Files installed are:
-	/etc/smartd.conf
-	/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd
-
-
+	/usr/local/etc/smartd.conf
+	/usr/local/etc/rc.d/init.d/smartd
 
 Additional information about using configure can be found here:
 http://www.gnu.org/manual/autoconf-2.57/html_mono/autoconf.html#SEC139
diff --git a/sm5/configure.in b/sm5/configure.in
index 4b37d12b76ed5e26798d291502e6b1ce003ee320..eb1b7850791fb056b817f050cbee2d6792239cc4 100644
--- a/sm5/configure.in
+++ b/sm5/configure.in
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 #
-# $Id: configure.in,v 1.73 2004/04/08 18:18:39 ballen4705 Exp $
+# $Id: configure.in,v 1.74 2004/05/04 21:23:40 ballen4705 Exp $
 #
 dnl Process this file with autoconf to produce a configure script.
 AC_PREREQ(2.50)
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ AC_INIT(smartmontools, 5.31, smartmontools-support@lists.sourceforge.net)
 AC_CONFIG_SRCDIR(smartctl.c)
 
 smartmontools_configure_date=`date -u +"%Y/%m/%d %T %Z"`
-smartmontools_cvs_tag=`echo '$Id: configure.in,v 1.73 2004/04/08 18:18:39 ballen4705 Exp $'`
+smartmontools_cvs_tag=`echo '$Id: configure.in,v 1.74 2004/05/04 21:23:40 ballen4705 Exp $'`
 smartmontools_release_date=2004/03/07
 smartmontools_release_time="20:57:36 UTC"
 
@@ -64,7 +64,6 @@ AC_SUBST(CPPFLAGS)
 AC_SUBST(LDFLAGS)
 AC_SUBST(ASFLAGS)
 
-AC_PREFIX_DEFAULT(['/usr'])
 AC_SUBST([exampledir], ['${docdir}/examplescripts'])
 
 AC_ARG_WITH(initscriptdir,[AC_HELP_STRING([--with-initscriptdir=dir],[Location of init scripts (default is ${sysconfdir}/rc.d/init.d)])],[initddir="$withval"],[initddir='${sysconfdir}/rc.d/init.d'])
@@ -78,10 +77,6 @@ AC_SUBST(smartd_suffix)
 AM_CONDITIONAL(SMARTD_SUFFIX, test $smartd_suffix)
 
 if test "$prefix" = "NONE"; then
-    dnl no prefix and no sysconfdir, so default to /etc
-    if test "$sysconfdir" = '${prefix}/etc'; then
-        AC_SUBST([sysconfdir], ['/etc'])
-    fi
     dnl no prefix and no mandir, so use ${prefix}/share/man as default
     if test "$mandir" = '${prefix}/man'; then
     	AC_SUBST([mandir], ['${prefix}/share/man'])