No, on my system they&#x27;re three distinct executables; check the sizes shown in my previous comment.<p>Ubuntu 14.04 uses GNU grep 2.16. When I install it from source (grep-2.16.tar.xz), I get the three distinct executables. When I install the latest version (2.25) from source, egrep and fgrep are shell script that invoke &quot;grep&quot;. (Which could be a problem if you happen to have another &quot;grep&quot; command in an earlier directory in your $PATH. Symlinks would avoid that problem.)<p>Here&#x27;s the Changelog entry for the change to shell scripts:<p><pre><code>    2014-03-23  Paul Eggert  &lt;eggert@cs.ucla.edu&gt;

        egrep, fgrep: go back to shell scripts
        Although egrep&#x27;s and fgrep&#x27;s switch from shell scripts to
        executables may have made sense in 2005, it complicated
        maintenance and recently has caused subtle performance bugs.
        Go back to the old way of doing things, as it&#x27;s simpler and more
        easily separated from the mainstream implementation.  This should
        be good enough nowadays, as POSIX has withdrawn egrep&#x2F;fgrep and
        portable applications should be using -E&#x2F;-F anyway.</code></pre>