rpm, rpmbuild and macros

When building rpms, avoid using root account. Fedora11 by default does this. For the rest, create ".rpmmacros" in your home directory, with the line below

%_topdir %{getenv:HOME}/rpmbuild


for added bonus, people using multi-lib capable architecture ( x86_64), should add the line below to rpmmacros

%_solve_name_fmt %{?_solve_pkgsdir}/%%{NAME}-%%{VERSION}-%%{RELEASE}.%%{ARCH}


reference:
how-to-patch-and-recompile-source-rpm