Question

I downloaded the source code of wget using apt-get source wget. I want to modify it a little, then use this wget rather than the one I’m using in /usr/bin/wget. How can I do that?

Answer 1

apt-get source wget is retrieving your distribution’s source code of wget.

You may want to work on the genuine upstream wget source, which you can get (with some wget or some browser) by following links from http://www.gnu.org/software/wget/

Then you configure, build and install – usually with ./configure; make; sudo make install but the details may vary from package to package. You should look into files named README and INSTALL

You could also be interested by libcurl

Notice that the GPL license requires more or less that you publish your patch (in source form) if you redistribute your patched version of your improved wget software binary