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<title>i3 - an improved dynamic tiling window manager</title>
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<h1>Howto build i3 on Ubuntu 9.04 for the amd64 architecture</h1>
<p>
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.
</p>
<p>
Clone the i3 repository
</p>
<pre>
$ git clone http://code.stapelberg.de/git/i3
</pre>
<p>
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
</p>
<pre>
$ mkdir deb && cd deb
</pre>
<p>
…and download the files
</p>
<pre>
$ 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"
</pre>
<p>
We install these:
</p>
<pre>
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb
</pre>
<p>
then change into the i3 directory and build the package:
</p>
<pre>
$ cd ../i3
$ dpkg-buildpackage
</pre>
<p>
and install it
</p>
<pre>
$ sudo dpkg -i ../i3-wm_1.0-1_amd64.deb
$ sudo dpkg -i ../i3_1.0-1_amd64.deb
</pre>
<p>
What remains is to configure i3. Create the default directory for i3’s config and copy the default config to it
</p>
<pre>
$ mkdir ~/.i3
$ cp /etc/i3/config ~/.i3/config
</pre>
<p>
Lastly, we need to set up i3 as default window manager. Create a new file ~/.xinitrc
</p>
<pre>
$ vim ~/.xinitrc
</pre>
<p>
and enter the following lines:
</p>
<pre>
#!/bin/sh
xsetroot -solid black
exec /usr/bin/i3
</pre>
<p>
Close vim and create a link to ~/.xinitrc and link it to ~/.Xsession:
</p>
<pre>
$ ln -s ~/.xinitrc ~/.Xsession
</pre>
<p>
You are done. When you are in the login screen, select "Sessions", and switch to "Default" or "Xsession" to start i3.
</p>