Awesome-3-git-Ubuntu-Intrepid

This is based on the Awesome-3-Ubuntu-git guide and you can follow up this to both, build the last release and the git HEAD version. Enjoy ;-)

1) Make sure your system is up-to-date, then install the GNU Toolchain, the git VCS and some debian/ubuntu packages.

$ sudo aptitude install build-essential autoconf automake libtool gperf xmlto
$ sudo aptitude install dpatch fakeroot git git-core debhelper

2) Next, install the X.org development packages required to build awesome.

$ sudo aptitude install libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev \
        libpango1.0-dev libimlib2-dev libgtk2.0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev \
        libxcb-render0-dev  libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev \
        libcairo2-dev libxcb-xinerama0-dev liblua5.1-filesystem0 \
        liblua5.1-logging libdirectfb-dev libxt-dev libx11-xcb-dev cmake \
        lua5.1 liblua5.1-0-dev libev3 libev-dev luadoc liblua5.1-doc0 \
        libxcb-aux0 libxcb-keysyms0 libxcb-xtest0-dev

3) Optionally you should get asciidoc (to build documentations and developer reference)

$ sudo aptitude install asciidoc

4) Build dependencies

get xcb-util:

$ git clone git://anongit.freedesktop.org/git/xcb/util
$ cd util && ./autogen.sh && ./configure && make && sudo make install

Note as of 19 Jan 2009, awesome-3.1.1 will not build against a HEAD checkout of xcb-utils. See this mailing list thread for details; as a workaround (as noted in that thread), download the xcb-util-0.3.2 tarball, expand it, and do the standard ./configure && make && sudo make install.

5) Build awesome

$ git clone git://git.naquadah.org/awesome.git
$ cd awesome && make && sudo make install

6) Create an ~/.xinitrc file and link it to ~/.Xsession

Create ~/.xinitrc with the following contents:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
xsetroot -solid black &
exec /usr/local/bin/awesome

Create a link to ~/.xinitrc and link it to ~/.Xsession:

ln -s ~/.xinitrc ~/.Xsession

7) Now, when you're in the login screen (aka gdm), select 'Sessions', and switch to 'Xsession' from the list. This will run your .xinitrc script.

GNOME and awesome

Chances are, however, you still want to use some parts of GNOME with awesome. You can do this! I have the following entries in my ~/.xinitrc:

gnome-screensaver &
gnome-settings-daemon &
gnome-power-manager &
nm-applet &

Note: when editing your .xinitrc, always make sure 'exec awesome' is last.

Installation into an alternate location

I wanted to be able to install into /opt/awesome-3.1.1, which required some modifications to the above. (N.b. this worked for me, but may not be the best/right way to do it; YMMV.)

First, when building xcb-util, specify the installation location during the configure, then build and install as normal:

./configure --prefix=/opt/awesome-3.1.1 && make && make install

Second, when building awesome, tell it where to find the xcb-util libraries and specify the installation location:

sed -i.old 's/usr\/local/opt\/awesome-3.1.1/' awesomeConfig.cmake 
PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/awesome-3.1.1/lib/pkgconfig/ cmake -DPREFIX=/opt/awesome-3.1.1
make && sudo make install

Note that the above 'make install' still requires root-level access because it drops a file into /etc/xdg/. I haven't yet played around with relocating that file, or simply not installing it.