gnomefreak@FeistyFawn:~/ff_build/firefox$ dh_make -e gnomefreak@gmail.com -f ../firefox-2.0.0.1.tar.gz The directory name must be - for dh_make to work! I cannot understand the directory name or you have an invalid directory name! Your current directory is /home/gnomefreak/ff_build/firefox, perhaps you could try going to directory where the sources are? Please note that this change is necessary ONLY during the initial Debianization with dh_make. When building the package, dpkg-source will gracefully handle almost any upstream tarball.