Usually I am using the packages from the official repositories. However, sometimes it's necessary to use a newer version, I recently had to do this with strongswan and I'm sharing the procedure for other people to try.

Get the build dependencies

[codesyntax lang="bash"]

apt-get update
apt-get install devscripts fakeroot
apt-get build-dep strongswan

[/codesyntax]

Obtain and build the package

[codesyntax lang="bash"]

mkdir ~/work
cd ~/work
debcheckout strongswan
cd strongswan
sed -e '/dh_strip/ s/^#*/#/' -i debian/rules
sed -e 's/debhelper.*/debhelper,/g' -i debian/control
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -uc -b

[/codesyntax]