diff --git a/changelog.php b/changelog.php
index 2b0dc3ae0..1b4807aa4 100644
--- a/changelog.php
+++ b/changelog.php
@@ -6,7 +6,15 @@
  * @version $Id$
  */
 
-$changelog = htmlspecialchars(file_get_contents('ChangeLog'));
+$filename = 'ChangeLog';
+
+// Check if the file is available, some distributions remove these.
+if (is_readable($filename)) {
+    $changelog = htmlspecialchars(file_get_contents($filename));
+} else {
+    echo "The $filename file is not available on this system, please visit www.phpmyadmin.net for more information.";
+    exit;
+}
 
 $replaces = array(
     '@(http://[./a-zA-Z0-9.-]*[/a-zA-Z0-9])@'
diff --git a/license.php b/license.php
index 91927f41a..c8c295799 100644
--- a/license.php
+++ b/license.php
@@ -13,5 +13,14 @@
  *
  */
 header('Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1');
-readfile('LICENSE');
+
+$filename = 'LICENSE';
+
+// Check if the file is available, some distributions remove these.
+if (is_readable($filename)) {
+    readfile($filename);
+} else {
+    echo "The $filename file is not available on this system, please visit www.phpmyadmin.net for more information.";
+}
+
 ?>
diff --git a/readme.php b/readme.php
index 34fecce0e..7f59a4e2f 100644
--- a/readme.php
+++ b/readme.php
@@ -13,5 +13,13 @@
  *
  */
 header('Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8');
-readfile('README');
+
+$filename = 'README';
+
+// Check if the file is available, some distributions remove these.
+if (is_readable($filename)) {
+    readfile($filename);
+} else {
+    echo "The $filename file is not available on this system, please visit www.phpmyadmin.net for more information.";
+}
 ?>