If you try AIDE on ubuntu and get:
aide --init Couldn't open file /var/lib/aide/please-dont-call-aide-without-parameters/\
aide.db.new for writing
Its not broken, its just that the ubuntu flavor has some wrappers and a cron script that runs it daily (no custom cron script to make like I thought I would have to). Simply run:
aideinit
Then sit back and wait for it to run through its auto generate conf file located at /var/lib/aide/aide.conf.autogenerated
Also, check the README to learn about the Debian additions.
zcat /usr/share/doc/aide-common/README.Debian.gz | less