First apply a patch: patch -Np1 -i ../&expect-patch; This fixes a bug in Expect that can result in bogus failures during the GCC test suite run. Now prepare Expect to be compiled: ./configure --prefix=/tools --with-tcl=/tools/lib --with-x=no The meaning of the configure options: --with-tcl=/tools/lib: This ensures that the configure script finds the Tcl installation in our temporary tools location. We don't want it to find an existing one that may possibly reside on the host system. --with-x=no: This tells the configure script not to search for Tk (the Tcl GUI component) or the X Window System libraries, both of which may possibly reside on the host system. Build the package: make This package has a test suite available which can perform a number of checks to ensure it built correctly. Should you choose to run it, the following command will do so: make test And install: make SCRIPTS="" install The meaning of the make option: SCRIPTS="": This prevents installation of the supplementary expect scripts which are not needed. You can now remove the source directories of both Tcl and Expect.