eterm-color.ti is a terminfo source file. eterm-color and eterm-direct are compiled versions produced by the terminfo compiler (tic). The compiled files are binary, and depend on the version of tic, but they seem to be system-independent and backwardly compatible. So there should be no need to recompile the distributed binary version. If it is necessary, use: tic -o ../ ./eterm-color.ti The compiled files are used by lisp/term.el, so if they are moved, term.el needs to be changed. terminfo requires them to be stored in an 'e' subdirectory (the first character of the file name).