diff --git a/debian/koha-common.docs b/debian/koha-common.docs
index 06575bdf43..6106c24178 100644
--- a/debian/koha-common.docs
+++ b/debian/koha-common.docs
@@ -1 +1,3 @@
 debian/docs/LEEME.Debian
+misc/release_notes/release_notes_3*.txt
+docs/history.txt
diff --git a/debian/koha-common.install b/debian/koha-common.install
index 810aadc2b8..e215bde4e4 100644
--- a/debian/koha-common.install
+++ b/debian/koha-common.install
@@ -1,4 +1,3 @@
-misc/release_notes/release_notes_3*.txt     usr/share/doc/koha-common
 debian/tmp/usr/*                            usr
 debian/tmp/etc/koha/searchengine
 debian/tmp/etc/koha/pazpar2
diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index cbcfaafd4e..2073ad2ff0 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -103,3 +103,7 @@ override_dh_auto_install:
 	xsltproc --output $(TMP)/debian/tmp_docbook/ \
 	    /usr/share/xml/docbook/stylesheet/docbook-xsl/manpages/docbook.xsl \
 	    debian/docs/*.xml
+
+override_dh_compress:
+	# exclude history.txt from compression as about.pl needs it uncompressed
+	dh_compress --exclude=history.txt