The easiest and safest way to install newm is by using its AUR package.

example:

yay -S newm-git

(subsitute yay with your aur helper,eg: paru)

Maybe you want to test features in development or help with debugging, whatever the case, the following tutorial aims to show how to:

• install a different branch from the main newm branch.
• install from a local copy of the repo
• install a old release

1. Clone PKBUILD

yay -G newm-git

2. Navigate to the downloaded folder

cd newm-git

3. Clone pywm and newm

git clone https://github.com/jbuchermn/pywm.git --branch=<any branch or tag>
git clone https://github.com/jbuchermn/newm.git --branch=<any branch or tag>

4. Build and install

makepkg -sic

Note for iterative building: remove the last build package with rm *zst before building,or else it will reinstall the same package that was previously built

• Q: I started newm with start-newm -d and it core dumped!
• A: try installing polkit(pacman -S polkit). I can't explain it, but it has fixed my issues in the past.
• Q: What if it still doesn't work?
• A: Open an issue and post your log.