diff --git a/Makefile.am b/Makefile.am
index af9260dfba..07fbce50da 100644
--- a/Makefile.am
+++ b/Makefile.am
@@ -23,14 +23,8 @@ EXTRA_DIST = ANNOUNCE INSTALL.autoconf RELEASE-NOTES UPGRADING \
 
 man_MANS = lyx.1
 
-#Wait some time for bumping automake 1.11, which can use dist-xz
-#directly without this code, which is to be removed.
-#xz has low compression by default, but can be affected via
-#export XZ_OPT=-9ev put somewhere in the makefile.
-lyxdist: dist
-	bunzip2 $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION).tar.bz2
-	xz -9 $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION).tar
-	ls -hl $(PACKAGE)-$(VERSION).tar.*
+# Set high compression level for xz distribution
+XZ_OPT=-9ev
 
 rpmdist: dist
 	$(LN_S) $(srcdir)/lib/images/lyx.png . ; \
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index fb7efb1656..686f36d09b 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@ AM_SILENT_RULES([yes])
 # file names only up to 99 characters. tar-ustar selects the ustar format defined
 # by POSIX 1003.1-1988. This format is believed to be old enough to be portable.
 save_PACKAGE=$PACKAGE
-AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign dist-bzip2 no-define 1.14 tar-ustar subdir-objects])
+AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign dist-xz no-define 1.14 tar-ustar subdir-objects])
 PACKAGE=$save_PACKAGE
 
 ### Set the execute permissions of the various scripts correctly