diff --git a/bin/cpu-freq b/bin/cpu-freq
index 0350d1c9..fa38eff2 100755
--- a/bin/cpu-freq
+++ b/bin/cpu-freq
@@ -1,8 +1,8 @@
 #!/bin/sh -e
 
 mhz=`grep -m 1 "^cpu MHz" /proc/cpuinfo | sed "s/^.*: //" | sed "s/\..*$//"`
-if [ $mhz -gt 1000 -a -x /usr/bin/bc ]; then
-	ghz=$(echo "scale=1; $mhz/1000" | bc)
+if [ $mhz -ge 1000 ]; then
+	ghz=$(echo "$mhz" | awk '{ printf "%.1f", $1 / 1000 }')
 	echo "$ghz""GHz"
 else
 	echo "$mhz""MHz"
diff --git a/bin/mem-available b/bin/mem-available
index ef19c12c..cd3b9319 100755
--- a/bin/mem-available
+++ b/bin/mem-available
@@ -1,11 +1,11 @@
 #!/bin/sh -e
 
 mem=`free | grep -m 1 "^Mem:" | awk '{print $2}'`
-if [ $mem -gt 1000000 -a -x /usr/bin/bc ]; then
-	mem=$(echo "scale=1; $mem/1000000" | bc)
+if [ $mem -ge 1048576 ]; then
+	mem=$(echo "$mem" | awk '{ printf "%.1f", $1 / 1048576 }')
 	echo "$mem""GB"
-elif [ $mem -gt 1000 -a -x /usr/bin/bc ]; then
-	mem=$(echo "scale=0; $mem/1000" | bc)
+elif [ $mem -ge 1024 ]; then
+	mem=$(echo "$mem" | awk '{ printf "%.0f", $1 / 1024 }')
 	echo "$mem""MB"
 else
 	echo "$mem""KB"
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index 662cef66..9e687d60 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -5,8 +5,9 @@ screen-profiles (1.13) UNRELEASED; urgency=low
     information
   * doc/help.txt: updated help page
   * keybindings/common: F12 -> lockscreen
+  * debian/control, bin/*: remove dependencing on bc by using awk
 
- -- Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com>  Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:30:14 -0500
+ -- Dustin Kirkland <kirkland@ubuntu.com>  Thu, 22 Jan 2009 00:31:23 -0500
 
 screen-profiles (1.12-0ubuntu1) jaunty; urgency=low
 
diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index 09c87474..5f55d0fd 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ Package: screen-profiles
 Architecture: all
 Depends: ${misc:Depends}, debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, screen, gettext-base, python, python-newt
 Recommends: update-notifier-common
-Suggests: bc
 Enhances: screen
 Description: a set of useful profiles and a profile-switcher for GNU screen
  screen-profiles includes a set of profiles for the GNU screen window manager.
@@ -22,7 +21,5 @@ Description: a set of useful profiles and a profile-switcher for GNU screen
  updates-available), etc.  The profile-switcher allows users to quickly switch
  their .screenrc to any of the available profiles.
  .
- bc provides more advanced calculations of memory and cpu-speed in the
- status panel.  update-notifier-common provides a more efficient and standard
- mechanism for calculating the number of updates available in the status
- panel.
+ update-notifier-common provides a more efficient and standard mechanism for
+ calculating the number of updates available in the status panel.