diff --git a/applets/usage_compressed b/applets/usage_compressed
index 00c5735fa..a299ecdf1 100755
--- a/applets/usage_compressed
+++ b/applets/usage_compressed
@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@ test "$target" || exit 1
 test "$loc" || loc=.
 test -x "$loc/usage" || exit 1
 test "$SED" || SED=sed
+test "$DD" || DD=dd
 
 sz=`"$loc/usage" | wc -c` || exit 1
 
@@ -20,15 +21,15 @@ echo 'static const char packed_usage[] ALIGN1 = {'
 ##
 ## "$loc/usage" | bzip2 -1 | od -v -x \
 ## | $SED -e 's/^[^ ]*//' \
-## | $SED -e 's/ //g' \
-## | grep -v '^$' \
-## | $SED -e 's/\(..\)\(..\)/0x\2,0x\1,/g'
+## 	-e 's/ //g' \
+## 	-e '/^$/d' \
+## 	-e 's/\(..\)\(..\)/0x\2,0x\1,/g'
 
-"$loc/usage" | bzip2 -1 | dd bs=2 skip=1 | od -v -t x1 \
+"$loc/usage" | bzip2 -1 | $DD bs=2 skip=1 2>/dev/null | od -v -t x1 \
 | $SED -e 's/^[^ ]*//' \
-| $SED -e 's/ //g' \
-| grep -v '^$' \
-| $SED -e 's/\(..\)/0x\1,/g'
+	-e 's/ //g' \
+	-e '/^$/d' \
+	-e 's/\(..\)/0x\1,/g'
 
 echo '};'
 echo '#define SIZEOF_usage_messages' `expr 0 + $sz`