For maps just put the pk3 files into your tremulous base folder, or ~/.tremulous/base
By "patch" I assume you mean applying patches to the tremulous source. Do an apt-get build-dep tremulous to install the tremulous dependencies then grab an SVN checkout with an "svn co svn://svn.icculus.org/tremulous/trunk tremulous-svn -r xxx" where xxx is the revision number you want. 755 is 1.10. Apply your patch(es) then compile away.