that is what i did while its failing on the pzip tool now.
root@2awdev1:/p/panda3d# python makepanda/makepanda.py --nothing --use-python
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Makepanda Initial Status Report
Makepanda: Compiler: LINUX
Makepanda: Optimize: 3
Makepanda: Keep Pkg: PYTHON
Makepanda: Omit Pkg: MAYA6 MAYA65 MAYA7 MAYA8 MAYA85 MAYA2008 MAX6 MAX7 MAX8 MAX9 DX8 DX9 ZLIB PNG JPEG TIFF VRPN FMOD FMODEX OPENAL NVIDIACG OPENSSL FREETYPE FFTW ARTOOLKIT DIRECTCAM FFMPEG PANDATOOL PANDAAPP
Makepanda: Verbose vs. Quiet Level: 1
Makepanda: Don't generate API reference manual
Makepanda: Version ID: 1.5.2
Makepanda: Caution: the built/lib directory is not in LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Makepanda: or /etc/ld.so.conf. You must add it before using panda.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Generating dependencies...
g++ -ftemplate-depth-30 -fPIC -c -o built/tmp/pzip_pzip.o -I"/usr/include/python2.5" -I"built/tmp" -I"built/include" -Ipanda/src/downloadertools -O2 panda/src/downloadertools/pzip.cxx
panda/src/downloadertools/pzip.cxx: In function 'bool do_compress(std::istream&, std::ostream&)':
panda/src/downloadertools/pzip.cxx:33: error: 'OCompressStream' was not declared in this scope
panda/src/downloadertools/pzip.cxx:33: error: expected `;' before 'compress'
panda/src/downloadertools/pzip.cxx:41: error: 'compress' was not declared in this scope
panda/src/downloadertools/pzip.cxx:45: error: 'compress' was not declared in this scope
Storing dependency cache.
Elapsed Time: 2 sec
Then you might need to also include --use-zlib
Sorry, I have no clue what packages are really necessary for compiling. I guess you just have to try it.
PS. If you want to exclude specific modules, comment them out in makepanda. Thats what I do too. Also, you can see in the makepanda source per package what 3rdparty lib it links to.