To build Openbox from git you need: A C Compiler (GNU GCC 3.2+ suggested) GNU Gettext 0.14.4 GNU Autoconf 2.50+ GNU Automake 1.9 (no more, no less) GNU Libtool Xlib library/headers (devel package) Pkg-Config Glib 2.0+ library/headers (devel package) (http://www.gtk.org) libxml2 2.0+ library/headers (devel package) Pango 1.10+ library/headers (devel package) cvs Optionally you may want: X Cursor library/headers (devel package) Startup Notification library/headers 0.8+ (devel package) We recommend the latest versions of all these packages. Do the following to build and install Openbox in git: % ./bootstrap % ./configure % make su to root and % make install or % sudo make install Don't try running it from the openbox/ directory without installing, it won't work. It needs to be installed before it is run. The following commands will be available: openbox-session, openbox-gnome-session, openbox-kde-session, and openbox. See the man pages for details about them. If you want to run Openbox on its own, you probably want to run "openbox-session". ---- In debian unstable, you want these packages: gcc gettext automake1.9 autoconf libtool libpango1.0-dev pkg-config libglib2.0-dev libxml2-dev libxcursor-dev libstartup-notification0-dev xlibs-dev tip: run "update-alternatives --config automake" and select automake1.9 before running ./configure ----