diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/readline/builder.sh b/pkgs/development/libraries/readline/builder.sh
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..6941aaf19c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/readline/builder.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+set -x
+
+. $stdenv/setup
+
+tar xvfz $src
+cd readline-*
+./configure --prefix=$out --with-curses
+make
+make install
+#strip -S $out/lib/*/*.a
diff --git a/pkgs/development/libraries/readline/default.nix b/pkgs/development/libraries/readline/default.nix
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..58c5bd6591c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/development/libraries/readline/default.nix
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+{ stdenv, fetchurl, ncurses }:
+
+stdenv.mkDerivation {
+  name = "readline-5.0";
+  builder = ./builder.sh;
+  src = fetchurl {
+    url = ftp://ftp.cwru.edu/pub/bash/readline-5.0.tar.gz ;
+    md5 = "9a39d15f1ed592883f8c6671e8c13120";
+  };
+  inherit ncurses;
+  buildInputs = [ncurses];
+}
diff --git a/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix b/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
index 1540e296a89..bcddd501268 100644
--- a/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
+++ b/pkgs/system/all-packages-generic.nix
@@ -529,6 +529,10 @@ rec {
     inherit fetchurl stdenv pkgconfig wxGTK python;
   };
 
+  readline = (import ../development/libraries/readline) {
+    inherit fetchurl stdenv ncurses;
+  };
+
 
   ### SERVERS
 
diff --git a/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix b/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix
index 8f1e6aa57c0..7fffb30f394 100644
--- a/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix
+++ b/pkgs/system/populate-cache.nix
@@ -24,6 +24,7 @@ let {
     gnum4
     valgrind
     texinfo
+    readline
     octave
     gnumake
     bisonnew