debian distro vs. applications

[sam rosenfeld <sam@wdn.com>]

I switched to Debian2.2r2 about eight months ago (at that time 2.2r2 was
the latest distribution).  Recently, I've been unable to build almost
all the applications I have tried.  The usual problem seems to be missing
file dependencies.  In fact, in almost all instances, the application
called for dependency files that had become available after the
distribution (lsl) had been written to the CDs.  For example, yesterday I
tried to build xpfd (reportedly a better alternative to acrobat).  After
completing ./configure, "make" halted with an error message to the effect
of:  libc6.2.2 or later is required and not found in memory.  In fact,
the latest version I have is libc6.1.

Now the question is:  Must I install completely new lib files once or
twice every year to keep up with the lib dependencies that are required?  

TIA,

sam