--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-AC_INIT([mklibs],m4_esyscmd(dpkg-parsechangelog | perl -ne 'print $1 if m/^Version: (.*)$/;'))
+AC_INIT([mklibs],m4_esyscmd([head -n1 debian/changelog | awk -F'[\\\\(\\\\)]' '{ print $2 }' | xargs -I{} echo -n {}]))
 AM_INIT_AUTOMAKE([foreign no-define])
 AC_CONFIG_HEADERS([config.h])
 AM_MAINTAINER_MODE
