better go with ubuntu azureus,remove ur current local install completely.azureus can update locally to the current version when it is connected and stores the files in ~/.azureus .dont worry,remove the mess completely.apt does the job well
at the end,u'll get the latest version of azureus as updates are installed in ~/.azureus.so remove the local install completely and dont try to install softwares from source and from internet in Debian and Ubuntu.the package managers does the job well.for source compilations,there are distros like gentoo,LFS etc.
ur Distro(Debian based) got the best package management at present so enjoy!!!