diff --git a/system/sleuthkit/README b/system/sleuthkit/README
index 790e55aee7..9cccdf1e3f 100644
--- a/system/sleuthkit/README
+++ b/system/sleuthkit/README
@@ -16,3 +16,10 @@ various disk image formats:
 Note: If you are building TSK for use with Plaso or the DFVFS, it is
 strongly recommended that you build libewf, libvhdi and libvmdk
 support into TSK by installing those libraries first.
+
+Note: by default, Java support is disabled in this build. If you
+require Java support, install a JDK (jdk, openjdk8, etc), source its
+profile script, and run sleuthkit.SlackBuild with JAVA=yes in the
+environment. Be warned that the Java build process downloads many
+files, therefore it requires network access (something SlackBuild
+scripts normally don't do).
diff --git a/system/sleuthkit/sleuthkit.SlackBuild b/system/sleuthkit/sleuthkit.SlackBuild
index d75c35a091..259f309367 100644
--- a/system/sleuthkit/sleuthkit.SlackBuild
+++ b/system/sleuthkit/sleuthkit.SlackBuild
@@ -86,6 +86,9 @@ find -L . \
  \( -perm 666 -o -perm 664 -o -perm 640 -o -perm 600 -o -perm 444 \
   -o -perm 440 -o -perm 400 \) -exec chmod 644 {} \;
 
+JAVAOPT="--disable-java"
+[ "${JAVA:-no}" = "yes" ] && JAVAOPT="--enable-java"
+
 CFLAGS="$SLKCFLAGS" \
 CXXFLAGS="$SLKCFLAGS" \
 ./configure \
@@ -95,13 +98,12 @@ CXXFLAGS="$SLKCFLAGS" \
   --sysconfdir=/etc \
   --localstatedir=/var \
   --disable-static \
+  $JAVAOPT \
   --build=$ARCH-slackware-linux
 
 make
 make install-strip DESTDIR=$PKG
-
-find $PKG/usr/man -type f -exec gzip -9 {} \;
-for i in $( find $PKG/usr/man -type l ) ; do ln -s $( readlink $i ).gz $i.gz ; rm $i ; done
+gzip -9 $PKG/usr/man/man*/*
 
 # "docs" directory now contains a simple pointer to the wiki.
 mkdir -p $PKG/usr/doc/$PRGNAM-$VERSION