diff --git a/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/default.nix
index 555da3de6d5..c396870f9e5 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/default.nix
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-{ stdenv, fetchurl
+{ stdenv, fetchurl, bison
 , qt4, xapian, file, python, perl
 , djvulibre, groff, libxslt, unzip, poppler_utils, antiword, catdoc, lyx
 , libwpd, unrtf, untex
@@ -7,17 +7,19 @@
 assert stdenv.system != "powerpc-linux";
 
 stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
-  ver = "1.20.6";
+  ver = "1.21.3";
   name = "recoll-${ver}";
 
   src = fetchurl {
     url = "http://www.lesbonscomptes.com/recoll/${name}.tar.gz";
-    sha256 = "0ympk2w21cxfvysyx96p0npsa54csfc84cicpi8nsj1qp824zxwq";
+    sha256 = "66f039f08b149d5e4840664d4a636f6b55145b02072f87aab83282ebe0cd593a";
   };
 
+  patches = [ ./nodeblayout.patch ./versionawk.patch ];
+
   configureFlags = [ "--with-inotify" ];
 
-  buildInputs = [ qt4 xapian file python ];
+  buildInputs = [ qt4 xapian file python bison];
 
   # the filters search through ${PATH} using a sh proc 'checkcmds' for the
   # filtering utils. Short circuit this by replacing the filtering command with
@@ -29,7 +31,7 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
       substituteInPlace  $f --replace catppt        ${catdoc}/bin/catppt
       substituteInPlace  $f --replace djvused       ${djvulibre}/bin/djvused
       substituteInPlace  $f --replace djvutxt       ${djvulibre}/bin/djvutxt
-      substituteInPlace  $f --replace grep          ${gnugrep}/bin/grep
+      substituteInPlace  $f --replace egrep         ${gnugrep}/bin/egrep
       substituteInPlace  $f --replace groff         ${groff}/bin/groff
       substituteInPlace  $f --replace gunzip        ${gzip}/bin/gunzip
       substituteInPlace  $f --replace iconv         ${libiconv}/bin/iconv
@@ -48,6 +50,8 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
     done
   '';
 
+  enableParallelBuilding = true;
+
   meta = with stdenv.lib; {
     description = "A full-text search tool";
     longDescription = ''
diff --git a/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/nodeblayout.patch b/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/nodeblayout.patch
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..39988423ae1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/nodeblayout.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+diff -ru recoll-1.21.3-orig/recollinstall.in recoll-1.21.3/recollinstall.in
+--- recoll-1.21.3-orig/recollinstall.in	2015-09-28 08:08:42.000000000 +0100
++++ recoll-1.21.3/recollinstall.in	2015-12-13 22:48:30.361776374 +0000
+@@ -45,9 +45,6 @@
+    mandir=$DESTDIR/$mandir
+    ROOTFORPYTHON="--root=${DESTDIR}"
+ fi
+-if test -f /etc/debian_version ; then
+-   OPTSFORPYTHON=--install-layout=deb
+-fi
+ 
+ echo "Installing to $PREFIX"
diff --git a/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/versionawk.patch b/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/versionawk.patch
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a03ffbc16df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/applications/search/recoll/versionawk.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
+diff -ru recoll-1.21.3-orig/filters/rclpdf recoll-1.21.3/filters/rclpdf
+--- recoll-1.21.3-orig/filters/rclpdf	2015-09-28 08:08:15.000000000 +0100
++++ recoll-1.21.3/filters/rclpdf	2015-12-14 21:37:01.984945925 +0000
+@@ -129,7 +129,7 @@
+ {
+     # Test poppler version: at some point before 0.24, poppler began
+     # to properly escape text inside the header (but not the body).
+-    XYZ=`pdftotext -v 2>&1 | awk '/pdftotext/{print $3}'`
++    XYZ=`pdftotext -v 2>&1 | awk '/version/{print $3}'`
+     MAJOR=`echo $XYZ | cut -d. -f 1`
+     MINOR=`echo $XYZ | cut -d. -f 2`
+     escapeheader=1