Ed isn't something which many people 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. Ed normally uses the mktemp function to create temporary files in /tmp, but this function contains a vulnerability (see the section on Temporary Files in ). The following patch makes Ed use mkstemp instead, which is the recommended way to create temporary files. Apply the patch: patch -Np1 -i ../ed-&ed-patch-version;.patch Now prepare Ed for compilation: ./configure --prefix=/usr Compile the package: make This package has a testsuite 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 check Install the package: make install And move the programs to the /bin directory, so they can be used in the event that the /usr partition is unavailable. mv /usr/bin/{ed,red} /bin