The upstream build system uses symlinks to perform the build in the linux/ directory: this causes make to always fail the very first time it is called, because apparentely it can't satisfy a dependency with a file created during the same run. This patch removes the symlink creation, since we make a copy of the needed files in debian/rules. Index: scrotwm/linux/Makefile =================================================================== --- scrotwm.orig/linux/Makefile 2009-03-23 22:21:01.000000000 +0100 +++ scrotwm/linux/Makefile 2009-03-23 22:21:09.000000000 +0100 @@ -7,10 +7,7 @@ LVERS= $(shell . ../lib/shlib_version; echo $$major.$$minor) -all: symlink scrotwm libswmhack - -symlink: - ln -sf ../scrotwm.c ../lib/swm_hack.c . +all: scrotwm libswmhack scrotwm: scrotwm.o linux.o $(CC) $(LDFLAGS) -o $@ $+ $(LDADD)