Linux: To Build IceWM 1.2.37

IceWM is my favorite window manager. Though most distros provide icewm packages, I like to build IceWM on my own. The following packages are needed to build IceWM.

• g++
  
• make
  
• libjpeg62-dev
  
• libpng12-dev
  
• libtiff4-dev
  
• libungif4-dev
  
• libxft-dev
  
• libice-dev
  

IceWM 1.2.37 depends on Imlib11 which is an obsolete library. I couldn't find imlib11 in Debian Sid any longer. In order to build IceWM that will work on many systems ranging from Debian Sarge to Debian Sid, I wanted to compile Imlib11 statically and integrate imlib11 into the IceWM binaries. So I downloaded Imlib11 source (imlib-1.9.15.tar.gz) from ftp.gnome.org and compiled static imlib11.

tar xzvf imlib-1.9.15.tar.gz

cd imlib-1.9.15

./configure --build=i586-pc-linux-gnu --sysconfdir=/etc --enable-static --disable-shared --disable-modules

make

make install

Then, I downloaded the source of IceWM 1.2.37 (icewm-1.2.37.tar.gz) from icewm.sf.net. I unpacked the tarball into my home directory and compile IceWM.

tar xzvf icewm-1.2.37.tar.gz

cd icewm-1.2.37

./configure --build=i586-pc-linux-gnu --enable-gradients --disable-sm --disable-shaped-decorations --disable-xrandr --disable-xinerama --disable-x86-asm

make

cp src/icewm src/icewmtray /usr/local/bin

strip /usr/local/bin/ice*

I am setting up IceWM in a minimal package. The following set of files are to be copied to a new system.

/etc/im_palette-small.pal
/etc/im_palette-tiny.pal
/etc/im_palette.pal
/etc/imrc
/usr/local/bin/icewm
/usr/local/bin/icewmtray

To customize IceWM, settings and themes should be saved in /etc/icewm and /usr/local/share/icewm.