diff --git a/src/builder-utils.c b/src/builder-utils.c
index c069f69a..26031935 100644
--- a/src/builder-utils.c
+++ b/src/builder-utils.c
@@ -51,6 +51,10 @@ G_DEFINE_AUTO_CLEANUP_CLEAR_FUNC (yaml_parser_t, yaml_parser_delete)
 G_DEFINE_AUTO_CLEANUP_CLEAR_FUNC (yaml_document_t, yaml_document_delete)
 #endif
 
+#ifndef DEBUGEDIT
+#define DEBUGEDIT "eu-strip"  /* or "strip" if eu-strip isn’t installed */
+#endif
+
 char *
 builder_uri_to_filename (const char *uri)
 {
diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index ef324d27..317d17ff 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -37,9 +37,6 @@ foreach arg : project_c_args
   endif
 endforeach
 
-# The debugedit program is a hard dependency
-debugedit = find_program('debugedit', version: '>= 5.0')
-
 # Require appstream with compose plugin installed
 appstreamcli = find_program('appstreamcli', version: '>= 0.15.0')
 appstreamcli_compose = run_command(appstreamcli, ['compose', '--help'], check: true)
diff --git a/src/meson.build b/src/meson.build
index 91798347..99aeea5a 100644
--- a/src/meson.build
+++ b/src/meson.build
@@ -29,7 +29,6 @@ yaml_dep = dependency('yaml-0.1', required: get_option('yaml'))
 
 config_data = configuration_data()
 config_data.set('FLATPAK_BUILDER_ENABLE_YAML', yaml_dep.found())
-config_data.set_quoted('DEBUGEDIT', debugedit.full_path())
 config_data.set_quoted('GETTEXT_PACKAGE', meson.project_name())
 config_data.set_quoted('PACKAGE_VERSION', meson.project_version())
 config_data.set_quoted('PACKAGE_STRING', '@0@-@1@'.format(meson.project_name(), meson.project_version()))