Ubuntu Wiki

The following way is good to get/patch/build the network-manager or network-manager-gnome packages:

Getting the source:

PACKAGE=network-manager
#or PACKAGE=network-manager-applet

apt-get source $PACKAGE
cd $PACKAGE-*/

Quick Patching For Testing:

patch -p1 < /tmp/yourpatch.patch
# or this could be -p0 in case your patch has no strip level

Building:

# get build dependencies
sudo apt-get build-dep $PACKAGE

# build binaries only
dpkg-buildpackage -rfakeroot -b