I've yet to try this (too busy putting the final touches to my RedHat 7.3) but  
CheckInstall looks as though it could provide a simple way of making Squeak 
rpms (or debs, or whatever Slack uses). From the release notes:

"After you ./configure; make your program, CheckInstall will run make install  
(or whatever you tell it to run) and keep track of every file modified by 
this installation, using the excelent installwatch utility written by 
Pancrazio 'Ezio' de Mauro (p at demauro.net).

When make install is done, CheckInstall will create a Slackware, RPM or Debian 
compatible package and install it with Slackware's installpkg, "rpm -i" or 
Debian's "dpkg -i" as appropriate, so you can view it's contents with pkgtool 
("rpm -ql" for RPM users or "dpkg -l" for Debian) or remove it with removepkg 
("rpm -e"|"dpkg -r"). Aditionally, this script will leave you a copy of the 
installed package in the source directory so you can install it wherever you 
want, which is my second motivation: I don't have to compile the same 
software again and again every time I need to install it on another box :-)." 

CheckInstall is at:

http://asic-linux.com.mx/~izto/checkinstall/

Cheers

John