Assuming your CUDA 7.0 top-level installation exists at /usr/local/cuda-7.0, the following commands should work: $ cp cufft_patch_linux.tar.gz ~ $ cd /usr/local/cuda-7.0 $ tar zxvf ~/cufft_patch_linux.tar.gz --keep-directory-symlink This will update the cufft libraries inside /usr/local/cuda-7.0/lib64