This package uses quilt to manage all modifications to the upstream source. Changes are stored in the source package as diffs in debian/patches and applied during the build. To configure quilt to use debian/patches instead of patches, you want either to export QUILT_PATCHES=debian/patches in your environment or use this snippet in your ~/.quiltrc: for where in ./ ../ ../../ ../../../ ../../../../ ../../../../../; do if [ -e ${where}debian/rules -a -d ${where}debian/patches ]; then export QUILT_PATCHES=debian/patches fi done To get the fully patched source after unpacking the source package, cd to the root level of the source package and run: quilt push -a The last patch listed in debian/patches/series will become the current patch. To add a new set of changes, first run quilt push -a, and then run: quilt new where is a descriptive name for the patch, used as the filename in debian/patches. Then, for every file that will be modified by this patch, run: quilt add before editing those files. You must tell quilt with quilt add what files will be part of the patch before making changes or quilt will not work properly. After editing the files, run: quilt refresh to save the results as a patch. Alternately, if you already have an external patch and you just want to add it to the build system, run quilt push -a and then: quilt import -P /path/to/patch quilt push -a (add -p 0 to quilt import if needed). as above is the filename to use in debian/patches. The last quilt push -a will apply the patch to make sure it works properly. To remove an existing patch from the list of patches that will be applied, run: quilt delete You may need to run quilt pop -a to unapply patches first before running this command.