make distcheck and the /etc dir

[Jason Curl]

Hello,

I have a project where the program expects the configuration files to be 
stored in '/etc/lx2005'. Appropriately, I've got such a Makefile.am:

  # Makefile.am for installing configuration data
  etcdir=/etc/lx2005
  etc_DATA = serlog.conf

  CLEANFILES = serlog.conf

  EXTRA_DIST = serlog.conf.generic \
             serlog.conf.busybox \
             serlog.conf.cygwin  \
             serlog.conf.linux   \
             serlog.conf.solaris \
             serlog.conf.freebsd \
             serlog.conf.interix \
             serlog.conf.darwin

  # When we 'make' we create a copy of the configuration file that was
  # determined during 'configure' time.
  serlog.conf: @top_srcdir@/serlog/etc/serlog.conf.$(MACHINE)
        cp -f @top_srcdir@/serlog/etc/serlog.conf.$(MACHINE) serlog.conf

The configuration that gets copied depends on the 'configure' script 
setting the variable $(MACHINE).

When I run 'make distcheck' it fails as it cannot install the files to 
'/etc/lx2005'. I would very much like the location of the configuration 
files to be independent of $(prefix) as the locations my project 
searches are independent of where it was installed.

Installing to my remote file system is easy enough and it works:
  make DESTDIR="/mnt/remotefs" install

How can I get 'make distcheck' to work with this configuration? 
Alternatively, I'm open for other ideas of implementation.

Thanks & Best Regards,
Jason.