Installing awn on LMDE XFCE without adding crazy gnome dependencies

sudo apt-get install libdesktop-agnostic0 libdesktop-agnostic-vfs-gio libdesktop-agnostic-fdo-glib libdesktop-agnostic-cfg-gconf gconf2 libnotify4

now, download this package:
http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/libawn1

and
sudo dpkg -i libawn1_0.4.1~bzr830-1_amd64.deb

(modify for your arch, of course)

now download this package:
http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/all/avant-window-navigator-data/download

and sudo dpkg -i for the downloaded file.

Now, you should be able to download the actual avant-window-manager package from here:
http://packages.debian.org/wheezy/avant-window-navigator

and run dpkg like so:
sudo dpkg  --ignore-missing gnome-applets --ignore-missing gnome-applets-data --ignore-missing gnome-control-center --ignore-missing gnome-panel --ignore-missing gnome-panel-data --ignore-missing gnome-session --ignore-missing nautilus --ignore-missing nautilus-data -i avant-window-navigator_0.4.1~bzr830-1_amd64.deb

Again, modified for your arch.

Now you have awn installed, but you're still not going to have very many applets... if you search through the repos, you will be able to install some of the applets without gnome dependencies, but many of them *depend* on gnome-applets.  Not to worry, we can install that without proper gnome as well.

First we need gnome-applets-data, which does not require any extra gnome nastiness.
sudo apt-get install gnome-applets-data

Then download this package:
http://packages.debian.org/squeeze/gnome-applets

now run:
sudo dpkg --ignore-depends gnome-control-center --ignore-depends gnome-panel --ignore-depends gnome-panel-data --ignore-depends gnome-session --ignore-depends nautilus --ignore-depends nautilus-data -i gnome-applets_2.30.0-3_amd64.deb

As usual, modifying for your archicture.  I found that installing the additional awn applet packages was slightly problematic and kept breaking things because gnome-applets keeps wanting to pull in gnome-panel.  If you see this breakage, run:

sudo aptitude -f install

Allow it to uninstall gnome-applets and then re-run the install cmd above.  Ultimately I had to download and install awn-applets-c-core with dpkg.

Now, not *everything* works.  A few of the applets crash, but the vast majority of things work just as they do in gnome, but without pulling in and running gnome-session and nautilus which really screw with the xfce user experience.  I will update this as I continue to debug some og the problems, but I'm happy to have a decent dock under xfce!