diff --git a/debian/rules b/debian/rules
index 904f9cdd4..631af25cf 100755
--- a/debian/rules
+++ b/debian/rules
@@ -8,9 +8,19 @@ export DH_VERBOSE=1
 # can be removed once on dh compat level 9
 DPKG_EXPORT_BUILDFLAGS = 1
 -include /usr/share/dpkg/buildflags.mk
+DEB_DISTRIBUTION = $(shell dpkg-parsechangelog | sed -n -e 's/^Distribution: //p')
 
+# Ubuntu 12.04 (precise) and Debian 7 have versions of Automake too old
+# to support autoreconf; just use the tarball-shipped versions
+# Can be removed once we stop shipping on these versions
 %:
+ifeq ($(DEB_DISTRIBUTION), precise)
+	dh $@ --with autotools-dev
+else ifeq ($(findstring 7, $(shell cat /etc/debian_version)), 7)
+	dh $@ --with autotools-dev
+else
 	dh $@ --with autotools-dev,autoreconf
+endif
 
 override_dh_installdocs:
 	dh_installdocs --link-doc=fish