OK..  To test this I took one of my trusty 486's and did the following:

created a dir /usr/src/altroot/{pkg,X11R6} on my nfs server.

Mounted them as /usr/pkg and /usr/X11R6 on the test box.

Installed the 1.3 xbase and all those fun tarballs on the machine.
did a make install in the xpkgwedge directory (went fine, placed the
xpkgwedge.def file in the right place)  I then followed the instructions and
made /etc/mk.conf say:
castor# more /etc/mk.conf
X11BASE=${LOCALBASE}

So.. I go to graphics/xpm and do a make:

>> Checksum OK for xpm-3.4j.tar.gz.
===>  Extracting for xpm-3.4j
===>  Patching for xpm-3.4j
===>  Applying NetBSD patches for xpm-3.4j
===>  Configuring for xpm-3.4j
imake -DUseInstalled -I/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/config
make Makefiles
making Makefiles in lib...
Imakefile.c:8: Imake.tmpl: No such file or directory
imake: Exit code 33.
  Stop.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: don't know how to make Makefiles. Stop
making Makefiles in sxpm...
Imakefile.c:8: Imake.tmpl: No such file or directory
imake: Exit code 33.
  Stop.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: don't know how to make Makefiles. Stop
make includes
including in ./lib...
make: don't know how to make includes. Stop
*** Error code 2

Stop.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
*** Error code 1

Stop.
castor# 


This happens on just about all the X pkgs I've tried to build so far.  A few
seem to work (xgas, Xaw3d, lesstif) but *alot* of them do this.  I've looked
into it, and I'm at a total loss here.

---
Tim Rightnour    -  root@garbled.net
http://www.zynetwc.com/~garbled/garbled.html