apt-get source

[aphro@portal.aphroland.org]

im tryin to build a sendmail 8.11 package..

using apt-get source with a source entry for unstable. it
gets mostof the way but dies when trying to link in with
NIS stuff. so i'm trying to remove the config references to
NIS/NIS+ as i do not need it. everytime i remove them apt-get
re patches from original and mychanges are lost. so i change
the patch itself and recompress the diff, and apt-get re downloads
the patch and my changes are lost. so i specify the --no-download
option to apt-get and it still downloads(!?!) i remove the source entries
from sources.list and apt bitches that i need to have them(?!) to
build a package. also i made a patch file with a newer version
(8.11.1-2 instead of -1) and it ignored it.

so what woudl the steps be to build this package manually? or
preferrably get apt to accept the files i have in the current directory
as the ones to use.

sendmail builds fine by itself. so all im tryin to do is remove
the NIS/NIS+ and LDAP stuff from debian's site.config.

or could i force install a version of sendmail from unstable
on potato, replace the binaries it installs with my own, and run
dpkg-repack ? so the binaries that i replace would be linked
against glibc 2.1 and not 2.2.

thanks!

nate