The Evans function is a Wronskian type determinant used to detect point spectrum of differential operators obtained by linearizing PDEs about special solutions such as traveling waves, etc. This work is a sequel to the paper "Derivatives of (modified) Fredholm determinants and stability of standing and traveling waves", published by F. Gesztesy, K. Zumbrun and the second author in J. Math. Pures Appl. 90, 160-200 (2008), where the Evans and Jost functions for the SchrΓΆdinger equations have been considered. In the current work, we study the Evans function for the general case of linear ODE systems, and choose it to agree with the modified Fredholm determinant of the respective Birman-Schwinger type integral operator. The Evans function is thus the determinant of the matrix composed of the so-called generalized Jost solutions. These are the solutions of the homogeneous perturbed differential equation which are asymptotic to some reference solutions of the unperturbed equation. One of the main results of the current paper is a formula for the derivative of the Evans function for the first order systems. Its proof uses a matrix composed of the newly introduced modified Jost solutions. These are the solutions of an inhomogeneous perturbed differential equation with the inhomogeneous term constructed by means of the above-mentioned generalized Jost solutions.