Prepare Gzip for compilation: ./configure --prefix=/usr The gzexe program has the location of the gzip binary hard-wired into it. Because we later change the location of this binary, the following command will place the new location into the gzexe binary. cp gzexe.in{,.backup} sed 's%"BINDIR"%/bin%' gzexe.in.backup > gzexe.in Compile the package: make Install the package: make install And move the programs to the /bin directory: mv /usr/bin/gzip /bin rm /usr/bin/{gunzip,zcat} ln -s gzip /bin/gunzip ln -s gzip /bin/zcat ln -s gunzip /bin/uncompress