diff --git a/deb/control.in b/deb/control.in
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..26962220f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/deb/control.in
@@ -0,0 +1,19 @@
+Package: pandoc
+Version: VERSION
+Section: text
+Priority: optional
+Architecture: all
+Depends:
+Maintainer: John MacFarlane <jgm@berkeley.edu>
+Description: general markup converter
+  Pandoc is a Haskell library for converting from one markup
+  format to another, and a command-line tool that uses
+  this library. It can read markdown and (subsets of) HTML,
+  reStructuredText, LaTeX, DocBook, MediaWiki markup, Haddock
+  markup, OPML, Emacs Org-Mode, txt2tags and Textile, and it can write
+  markdown, reStructuredText, HTML, LaTeX, ConTeXt, Docbook,
+  OPML, OpenDocument, ODT, Word docx, RTF, MediaWiki, DokuWiki,
+  Textile, groff man pages, plain text, Emacs Org-Mode, AsciiDoc,
+  Haddock markup, EPUB (v2 and v3), FictionBook2,
+  InDesign ICML, and several kinds of HTML/javascript
+  slide shows (S5, Slidy, Slideous, DZSlides, reveal.js).
diff --git a/make_binary_package.sh b/make_deb.sh
similarity index 85%
rename from make_binary_package.sh
rename to make_deb.sh
index c2b051232..589e7cad4 100755
--- a/make_binary_package.sh
+++ b/make_deb.sh
@@ -2,10 +2,11 @@
 
 SANDBOX=`pwd`/.cabal-sandbox
 VERSION=$(grep -e '^Version' pandoc.cabal | awk '{print $2}')
-BASE=pandoc-$VERSION-$(uname -s)-$(uname -m)
+DEBPKGVER ?= 1
+BASE=pandoc-$VERSION-$DEBPKGVER
 DIST=`pwd`/$BASE
 MANDIR=`pwd`/man
-DEST=$DIST
+DEST=$DIST/usr/local
 ME=$(whoami)
 
 # echo Removing old files...
@@ -36,14 +37,9 @@ install $MANDIR/man5/pandoc_markdown.5 $DEST/share/man/man5/
 install $PANDOC_CITEPROC_PATH/man/man1/pandoc-citeproc.1 $DEST/share/man/man1/
 install COPYING $DEST/share/doc/pandoc/COPYING
 install $PANDOC_CITEPROC_PATH/LICENSE $DEST/share/doc/pandoc-citeproc/LICENSE
-
 rm -rf $PANDOC_CITEPROC_PATH
 
-echo Creating tarball...
-# remove old package first
-rm -rf $BASE.tar.gz
+mkdir $DIST/DEBIAN
+perl -pe 's/VERSION/${VERSION}-${DEBPKGVER}/' deb/control.in > $DIST/DEBIAN/control
 
-tar cvzf $BASE.tar.gz $BASE
-# cleanup
-rm -r $DIST
-echo "Created $BASE.tar.gz"
+dpkg-deb --build $DIST