The debian and ubuntu packages build a special version of vte that is build with -DX_DISPLAY_MISSING. From 0.24.0 on this no longer works:

libtool: link: gcc -pthread -D_REENTRANT -I/usr/include/gtk-2.0 -I/usr/include/glib-2.0 -I/usr/lib/glib-2.0/include -I/usr/include/pango-1.0 -I/usr/lib/gtk-2.0/include -I/usr/include/atk-1.0 -I/usr/include/cairo -I/usr/include/directfb -I/usr/include/pixman-1 -I/usr/include/freetype2 -I/usr/include/libpng12 -I/usr/include/gio-unix-2.0/ -g -O2 -g -Wall -O2 -Os -DX_DISPLAY_MISSING -Wall -Wextra -Wsign-compare -Wpointer-arith -Wwrite-strings -Wstrict-prototypes -Waggregate-return -Wcast-align -Wimplicit -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations -Wnested-externs -Wpacked -Wmissing-format-attribute -Wshadow -Wstrict-aliasing=2 -Winit-self -Wunsafe-loop-optimizations -Wdeclaration-after-statement -Wold-style-definition -Wno-missing-field-initializers -Wno-unused-parameter -fno-common -Wno-switch-enum -Wl,-Bsymbolic-functions -o .libs/vte vte-vteapp.o -pthread  ./.libs/libvte.so -lgtk-directfb-2.0 -lgdk-directfb-2.0 /usr/lib/libatk-1.0.so /usr/lib/libgdk_pixbuf-2.0.so /usr/lib/libpangocairo-1.0.so /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so /usr/lib/libcairo.so -ldirectfb -lfusion -ldirect -lpthread /usr/lib/libgio-2.0.so /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so /usr/lib/libgmodule-2.0.so /usr/lib/libgthread-2.0.so -lrt /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so -lm -pthread
./.libs/libvte.so: undefined reference to `vte_bg_root_surface'

vte_bg_root_surface is defined in a "#ifndef X_DISPLAY_MISSING" block.