Hi Nicolas!
Questions about the Debian package are best answered by the Debian
Maintainer, but I'll try to give an answer nevertheless...
> there is a package maxima-src in the Debian package system. However, as
> much as I see I cannot build maxima from there (using SBCL) because
> essential files are missing (e.g. "configure.lisp",
> "src/maxima-build.lisp").
Yes, maxima-src is a binary Debian package containing the maxima lisp
source. If you want to compile an new maxima package under Debian you
should get the Debian source package with "apt-get source maxima".
> What is the idea of having this source package then?
I guess it's the "source is documentation" philosophy. Also you can
load modified lisp files from src into a precompiled maxima binary,
so having the sources around for easy installation and modification
might be nice.
HTH,
Harald