Zlib has a potential buffer overflow in its gzprintf() function, that, though difficult to take advantage of, should be taken care of. Do so by applying this patch: patch -Np1 -i ../zlib-&zlib-patch-version;.patch Prepare Zlib to be compiled: CFLAGS="$CFLAGS -fPIC" \     ./configure --prefix=/usr --shared The -fPIC flag helps to assure quality in the dynamic zlib library. make Install the libraries: make install make clean ./configure --prefix=/usr make make test make install The shared zlib library should be installed in the /lib directory. That way, in the event that you must boot without the /usr directory, vital system programs will still have access to the library: mv /usr/lib/libz.so.* /lib The /usr/lib/libz.so symlink is linked to a file which no longer exists, because we moved it. Create a symbolic link to the new location of the library: ln -sf ../../lib/libz.so.1 /usr/lib/libz.so Zlib does not install its manual page. Issue the following command to install this documentation: cp zlib.3 /usr/share/man/man3