The wmanager package uses dpatch to maintain local changes to the wmanager distribution. The Debian-specific patches are maintained in the debian/patches/ directory. To apply all the patches, preparing the source for building, use: debian/rules patch To revert the patches, preparing to build a source package, use: debian/rules unpatch You do not need to manually execute these targets when building the package; they are part of the debian/rules target chain. To edit the patches, use the dpatch-edit-patch(1) program. Do not forget to add new patches or remove obsolete ones from the list in the debian/patches/00list file - just adding and removing the patch files from the debian/patches/ directory may not be enough!