Ed isn't something you would personally use. It's installed here because it can be used by the patch program if you encounter an ed-based patch file. This happens rarely because diff-based patches are preferred these days. This package requires its patch to be applied before you can install it. patch -Np1 -i ../ed-&ed-patch-version;.patch Prepare Ed to be compiled: ./configure --prefix=/usr Continue with compiling the package: make And finish off installing the package: make install Move the Ed binaries to the root partition. mv /usr/bin/{ed,red} /bin patch -Np1 -i ../ed-&ed-version;.patch: This patch fixes a symlink vulnerability in ed. The ed executable creates files in /tmp with predictable names. By using various symlink attacks, it is possible to have ed write to files it should not, change the permissions of files, etc. mv /usr/bin/{ed,red} /bin: The Ed binaries are moved to the /bin directory so they may be used in the event that the /usr partition is unavailable.