Comment 10 for bug 253985

On *Jaunty* I had to do a:

sudo apt-get install cdbs perf libtool check libdbus-1-dev

Also you may need to do:
sudo apt-get install xmlto asciidoc cmake luadoc libreadline-dev libev-dev liblua5.1 libimlib2-dev

dget -u --build https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/+source/xcb-proto/1.3-1/+files/xcb-proto_1.3-1.dsc
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

dget -u --build https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/jaunty/+source/libxcb/1.1.93-0ubuntu3/+files/libxcb_1.1.93-0ubuntu3.dsc
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

dget -u --build http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/x/xcb-util/xcb-util_0.3.3-2.dsc
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

dget -u --build http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/a/awesome/awesome_3.2~rc4-1.dsc
sudo dpkg -i awesome_3.2~rc4-1_i386.deb

I got it running, make sure to do a

cp -r ~/.config/awesome ~/.config/awesome_old && rm -rf ~/.config/awesome && cp -r /etc/xdg/awesome ~/.config/

This, like other awesome feature releases, will require you to custom edit your current rc.lua. Also, the default one will be different.