[HowTo] How do I install Qtile on Bookworm

[None1975]

This is a guide for those who want to install and try the Qtile window manager.

Since Bookworm and later don't accept installing Python stuff using pip anymore, all the guides don't work anymore. So I decided to write my own guide.

So, lets get started.

Qtile has never been included in the official Debian distribution so debian's usual package installation method (sudo apt install qtile) will not work. Instead, qtile's recommended installation method has, up until now, been pip install ....

However, Debian, Ubuntu and Fedora have all recently made stable releases which incorporate PEP-668 - this is a change to the python ecosystem designed to avoid system environment breakage caused by using potentially conflicting package managers (for example sudo apt install vs. pip install). One consequence of this change is that we can no longer use pip install ... to install system packages as we did previously.

PEP-668 is basically a safety mechanism that stops pip from installing into your python "system environment". There are several different ways to override (i.e. ignore) this safety mechanism.

While this approach is chosen by many users, I want to avoid it if possible. I personally think that PEP-668 is a move in the right direction, and that letting pip modify your system environment is a retrograde step (When your system breaks, you will get to keep both pieces).

So, how i installed Qtile?

Install package, called pipx.

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apt install --no-install-recommends pipx

Then, install necessary packages:

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apt install xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-libinput xinit libpangocairo-1.0-0 python3-xcffib python3-cairocffi

Install your preferred terminal emmulator. I proffered urxvt:

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apt install rxvt-unicode 

Make necessary directory:

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mkdir -p ~/.local/bin

Reboot, login to your system and issue command (as ordinary user, not root):

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pipx install qtile

Create the "pipx version" of .xinitrc

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touch .xinitrc

Open this file in default console text editor (nano) and put this to that file:

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exec qtile start

Now, when I run startx, I get the default qtile desktop.

P.S.

You can also install other modules for widgets like psutil, dbus-next with command

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pipx inject qtile dbus-next psutil

pipx command inject us for installing packages into an existing Virtual Environment.

Good luck.

[tynman]

Thank you None1975. (Will have to give that a try soon.)

[None1975]

Here screenshot.