Due to Ubuntu 9.04’s lack of recent libxcb* packages, we cannot simply provide a debian package. The following howto will explain how to build one for yourself after downloading the necessary libxcb* packages from Debian.
Clone the i3 repository
$ git clone http://code.stapelberg.de/git/i3
The Ubuntu repositories do not contain the required versions of several packages. Hence we need to get them from Debian. Create a new directory for the .debs
$ mkdir deb && cd deb
…and download the files
$ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-wm0-dev_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-aux0-dev_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-wm0_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-atom1-dev_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-event1-dev_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-property1-dev_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-icccm1-dev_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-wm0_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-atom1_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-icccm1_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-property1_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-event1_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-aux0_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-keysyms0_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb" $ wget "http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/libxcb-keysyms0-dev_0.3.3-2+b1_amd64.deb"
We install these:
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
then change into the i3 directory and build the package:
$ cd ../i3 $ dpkg-buildpackage
and install it
$ sudo dpkg -i ../i3-wm_1.0-1_amd64.deb $ sudo dpkg -i ../i3_1.0-1_amd64.deb
What remains is to configure i3. Create the default directory for i3’s config and copy the default config to it
$ mkdir ~/.i3 $ cp /etc/i3/config ~/.i3/config
Lastly, we need to set up i3 as default window manager. Create a new file ~/.xinitrc
$ vim ~/.xinitrc
and enter the following lines:
#!/bin/sh xsetroot -solid black exec /usr/bin/i3
Close vim and create a link to ~/.xinitrc and link it to ~/.Xsession:
$ ln -s ~/.xinitrc ~/.Xsession
You are done. When you are in the login screen, select "Sessions", and switch to "Default" or "Xsession" to start i3.