patch maintenance system for Debian source packages dpatch is an easy to use patch system for debian packages, somewhat similar to the dbs package, but much simpler to use. It lets you store patches and other simple customization templates in debian/patches and otherwise does not require much reorganization of your source tree. To get the patches applied at build time you simply need to include a makefile snippet and then depend on the patch/unpatch target in the build or clean stage of debian/rules - or you can use the dpatch patching script directly. It can easily apply patches only on specific architectures if needed.