Ubuntu Gutsy

I believe that there is a Debian package for awesome, but I still build it from scratch. Here's what you need to do to make/install it from a fresh Ubuntu installation.

1) Make sure your system is up-to-date, then install the build-essential package.

$ sudo apt-get install build-essential

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

$ sudo apt-get install libx11-dev libxinerama-dev libxrandr-dev libcairo2-dev libpango1.0-dev libimlib2-dev

3) Download libconfuse from the confuse website. Confuse appears to have no dependencies beyond the pacakges installed in build-essential.

4) Build libconfuse and install it.

tar -xvzf confuse-2.x.tar.gz
./configure
...bunch of output...
make
sudo make install

5) Download awesome and build and install it.

tar -xvzf awesome-2.3.xxx.tar.g
./configure
...bunch of output...
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 &

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

If you want to use NetworkManager, you need to get a tray. I've been using stalonetray which is a lightweight tray to display applets. To build stalonetray, simply download the code, run './configure && make && sudo make install' to make and install it. Then add the following to your .xinitrc

/usr/local/bin/stalonetray &
nm-applet &

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