[Evolution] How to apply a patch... Followup from "How to remove duplicates Mandriva 2010.1"

[Barry Smith <bnsmith001 gmail com>]

First, I'm not using Mandriva.
I'm using Ubuntu.

I have used Linux part-time for almost 6 years until a month ago, when I
switched to using it full-time.  I have installed and re-installed two
versions of Ubuntu, and finally upgraded to 10.10 (maverick) all within
a month.

I have been through two compiles and installs of
remove-duplicates-0.0.4, found out when I upgraded to Lucid (10.04) that
Evolution added remove-duplicates as an ePlugin, and have just found out
that they disabled it.

Is there a "How-to" somewhere that details (for the beginning user) how
to apply a patch... like the patch attached to
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=587011 in the file
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/attachment.cgi?id=172408 .

Which version of Evolution does the patch apply to, and is the code
required still in current Evo source just not used?  If the code was
removed that is needed for the patch, what else do I have to download?

        Sidebar -- Okay... stupid question -- What is needed to decide
        that remove-duplicates was actually a useful function that was
        highly desired, and the next release of evolution will include
        the plugin again? Just asking... since someone write a patch to
        re-enable it.

To this programmer (IOW me), the "patch" looks like a diff report (or a
SuperC report from my mainframe days, or a Merge report from my MS-DOS &
Windoze programming days).

After my upgrade to maverick, Evolution is reporting Evolution 2.30.3...
yet the IRC #evolution at irg.gnome.org channel is talking about
Evolution 2.32.0... 

What original source do I need to "patch"? Where is it?
Oh yeah... how do I patch the source once I download it?

Ubuntu synaptic will give me access to none of the source module
packages (at this moment), but it will give me access to the following
packages -- 
        evolution (2.30.3-1ubuntu7)  installed
        evolution-common (2.30.3-1ubuntu7)  installed
        evolution-couchdb (0.5.0-0ubuntu1)  installed
        evolution-data-server (2.30.3-2ubuntu2)  installed
        evolution-data-server-common (2.30.3-2ubuntu2)  installed
        evolution-data-server-dbg (2.30.3-2ubuntu2)    NOT installed
        evolution-data-server-dev (2.30.3-2ubuntu2)    NOT installed
        evolution-dbg (2.30.3-1ubuntu7)    NOT installed
        evolution-dev (2.30.3-1ubuntu7)    installed
        evolution-exchange (2.30.3-0ubuntu2)    installed
        evolution-exchange-dgb (2.30.3-0ubuntu2)    NOT installed
        evolution-indicator (0.2.10-0ubuntu1)    installed
        evolution-mapi (0.30.3-1ubuntu1)    NOT installed
        evolution-mapi-dgb (0.30.3-1ubuntu1)    NOT installed
        evolution-plugins (2.30.3-1ubuntu7)    installed
        evolution-plugins-experimental (2.30.3-1ubuntu7)    NOT
        installed
        evolution-rss (0.2.0-1)    NOT installed
        evolution-webcal (2.28.1-1)    installed
Full list of other "evolution" packages installed...
        libebackend1.2-0 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2), 
        libebook1.2-9 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2), 
        libebook1.2-dev (2.30.3-2ubuntu2), 
        libecal1.2-7 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libedata-book1.2-2 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libedata-cal1.2-7 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libedataserver1.2-13 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libedataserver1.2-dev (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libedataserverui1.2-8 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libedataserverui1.2-dev (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libegroupwise1.2-13 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libevolution (2.30.3-1ubuntu7),
        libfolks-telepathy0 (0.1.17-0ubuntu2),
        libfolks0 (0.1.17-0ubuntu2),
        libgdata-google1.2-1 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libgdata1.2-1 (2.30.3-2ubuntu2),
        libpisock9 (0.12.5-2ubuntu1),
        libpisync1 (0.12.5-2ubuntu1),
        nautilus-sendto (2.32.0-0ubuntu1),
        openoffice.org-gnome (1:3.2.1-7ubuntu1),
        python-evolution (2.30.0-1ubuntu5),

None of the packages appear to be source modules.

Thank you for help,

Barry Smith