A patch must be applied in order to prevent compilation errors. The patch fixes a variable conflict and some bad syntax: patch -Np1 -i ../findutils-&findutils-patch-version;.patch The locate program from Findutils may segfault if it encounters a long path name. To correct this, apply the second patch: patch -Np1 -i ../findutils-&findutils-segfault-patch-version;-segfault.patch Prepare Findutils to be compiled: ./configure --prefix=/usr By default, the location of the updatedb database is in /usr/var. To make the location of /var/lib/misc/locatedb file FHS compliant, pass the localstatedir=/var/lib/misc option to both make commands below. Continue with compiling the package: make libexecdir=/usr/bin Finish installing the package: make libexecdir=/usr/bin install