diff --git a/debian/control b/debian/control
index 031dbf460..6d1535644 100644
--- a/debian/control
+++ b/debian/control
@@ -2,8 +2,9 @@ Source: fish
 Section: shells
 Priority: extra
 Maintainer: ridiculous_fish <corydoras@ridiculousfish.com>
-Uploaders: David Adam <zanchey@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>, Siteshwar Vashisht <siteshwar@gmail.com>
+Uploaders: David Adam <zanchey@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>
 Build-Depends: debhelper (>= 8.0.0), libncurses5-dev, autoconf, autotools-dev, dh-autoreconf, gettext
+# When libpcre2-dev is available on all supported Debian versions, add a dependency on that.
 Standards-Version: 3.9.4
 Homepage: http://fishshell.com/
 Vcs-Git: git://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell.git
@@ -11,13 +12,25 @@ Vcs-Browser: https://github.com/fish-shell/fish-shell
 
 Package: fish
 Architecture: any
-Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, passwd (>= 4.0.3-10), bc, gettext-base, man-db
-Recommends: python (>=2.6), xsel (>=1.2.0), xdg-utils
+Depends: ${shlibs:Depends}, ${misc:Depends}, fish-common (= ${source:Version}), passwd (>= 4.0.3-10), bc, gettext-base, man-db
+Recommends: xsel (>=1.2.0), xdg-utils
 Description: friendly interactive shell
  Fish is a command-line shell for modern systems, focusing on user-friendliness,
  sensibility and discoverability in interactive use. The syntax is simple, but
  not POSIX compliant.
 
+Package: fish-common
+Architecture: all
+Depends: ${misc:Depends}
+Recommends: fish, python (>=2.6), xdg-utils
+Replaces: fish (<= 2.1.1.dfsg-2)
+Description: friendly interactive shell (architecture-independent files)
+ Fish is a command-line shell for modern systems, focusing on user-friendliness,
+ sensibility and discoverability in interactive use. The syntax is simple, but
+ not POSIX compliant.
+ .
+ This package contains the common fish files shared by all architectures.
+
 Package: fish-dbg
 Architecture: any
 Section: debug
diff --git a/debian/copyright b/debian/copyright
index 675ae0959..bcc91fef7 100644
--- a/debian/copyright
+++ b/debian/copyright
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 This work was packaged for Debian by David Adam <zanchey@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>
 on Thu, 14 Jun 2012 20:33:34 +0800, based on work by James Vega
-<jamessan@jamessan.com>.
+<jamessan@jamessan.com>. Modifications from the downstream Debian maintainer,
+Tristan Seligmann <mithrandi@debian.org>, have also been included.
 
 It was downloaded from:
 
@@ -79,5 +80,6 @@ The Debian packaging is:
 
     Copyright (C) 2005 James Vega <jamessan@jamessan.com>
     Copyright (C) 2012 David Adam <zanchey@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>
+    Copyright (C) 2015 Tristan Seligmann <mithrandi@debian.org>
 
 and is licensed under the GPL version 2, see above.
diff --git a/debian/fish.doc-base b/debian/fish-common.doc-base
similarity index 99%
rename from debian/fish.doc-base
rename to debian/fish-common.doc-base
index 630b8563a..193eb8988 100644
--- a/debian/fish.doc-base
+++ b/debian/fish-common.doc-base
@@ -9,4 +9,3 @@ Format: HTML
 Index: /usr/share/doc/fish/index.html
 Files: /usr/share/doc/fish/*.html
 
-
diff --git a/debian/fish-common.docs b/debian/fish-common.docs
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..b43bf86b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/fish-common.docs
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+README.md
diff --git a/debian/fish-common.install b/debian/fish-common.install
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..bf0ea0cf1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/fish-common.install
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+debian/tmp/etc
+debian/tmp/usr/share
diff --git a/debian/fish-common.lintian-overrides b/debian/fish-common.lintian-overrides
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..c6ccc2546
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/fish-common.lintian-overrides
@@ -0,0 +1,4 @@
+# These directories are intentionally empty.
+fish-common: package-contains-empty-directory usr/share/fish/vendor_completions.d/
+fish-common: package-contains-empty-directory usr/share/fish/vendor_conf.d/
+fish-common: package-contains-empty-directory usr/share/fish/vendor_functions.d/
diff --git a/debian/fish.install b/debian/fish.install
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..451ddc0d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/debian/fish.install
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+debian/tmp/usr/bin
diff --git a/debian/postinst b/debian/fish.postinst
similarity index 100%
rename from debian/postinst
rename to debian/fish.postinst
diff --git a/debian/postrm b/debian/fish.postrm
similarity index 100%
rename from debian/postrm
rename to debian/fish.postrm
diff --git a/debian/prerm b/debian/fish.prerm
similarity index 100%
rename from debian/prerm
rename to debian/fish.prerm