How to build i3 statically?

[Samueru-sama]

I want to build i3wm statically, since I build it with a patch that fixes an issue that I have, that way I don't have to be manually building it everytime that I change distro.

With other programs it is a simple as passing the ld and c flags, but with meson I tried a bunch of different things and the resulting binary is still dynamically linked.

Googling for a while all I found was this: https://i3-discuss.i3.zekjur.narkive.com/xEbMJwf5/i3-how-to-get-i3wm-statically-linked

[Samueru-sama]

I found that I just need to pass the flag -Dc_link_args=-static to meson. However i3 fails when compiling when that is done 😭

FAILED: i3 
cc  -o i3 i3.p/src_assignments.c.o i3.p/src_bindings.c.o i3.p/src_click.c.o i3.p/src_commands.c.o i3.p/src_commands_parser.c.o i3.p/src_con.c.o i3.p/src_config.c.o i3.p/src_config_directives.c.o i3.p/src_config_parser.c.o i3.p/src_display_version.c.o i3.p/src_drag.c.o i3.p/src_ewmh.c.o i3.p/src_fake_outputs.c.o i3.p/src_floating.c.o i3.p/src_gaps.c.o i3.p/src_handlers.c.o i3.p/src_ipc.c.o i3.p/src_key_press.c.o i3.p/src_load_layout.c.o i3.p/src_log.c.o i3.p/src_main.c.o i3.p/src_manage.c.o i3.p/src_match.c.o i3.p/src_move.c.o i3.p/src_output.c.o i3.p/src_randr.c.o i3.p/src_regex.c.o i3.p/src_render.c.o i3.p/src_resize.c.o i3.p/src_restore_layout.c.o i3.p/src_scratchpad.c.o i3.p/src_sd-daemon.c.o i3.p/src_sighandler.c.o i3.p/src_startup.c.o i3.p/src_sync.c.o i3.p/src_tiling_drag.c.o i3.p/src_tree.c.o i3.p/src_util.c.o i3.p/src_version.c.o i3.p/src_window.c.o i3.p/src_workspace.c.o i3.p/src_x.c.o i3.p/src_xcb.c.o i3.p/src_xcursor.c.o i3.p/src_xinerama.c.o -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,--no-undefined -static -Wl,--start-group libi3.a -pthread -lm -lrt /usr/lib/libstartup-notification-1.so /usr/lib/libxcb.so /usr/lib/libxcb-xkb.so /usr/lib/libxcb-xinerama.so /usr/lib/libxcb-randr.so /usr/lib/libxcb-shape.so /usr/lib/libxcb-util.so /usr/lib/libxcb-cursor.so /usr/lib/libxcb-keysyms.so /usr/lib/libxcb-icccm.so /usr/lib/libxcb-xrm.so /usr/lib/libxkbcommon.so /usr/lib/libxkbcommon-x11.so /usr/lib/libyajl.so /usr/lib/libpcre2-8.so /usr/lib/libcairo.so /usr/lib/libpangocairo-1.0.so /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so /usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/14.1.1/../../../../lib/libev.so -Wl,--end-group
/usr/bin/ld: attempted static link of dynamic object `/usr/lib/libstartup-notification-1.so'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
[92/108] Linking target i3-dump-log
FAILED: i3-dump-log 
cc  -o i3-dump-log i3-dump-log.p/i3-dump-log_main.c.o -Wl,--as-needed -Wl,--no-undefined -static -Wl,--start-group libi3.a -pthread -lm -lrt /usr/lib/libstartup-notification-1.so /usr/lib/libxcb.so /usr/lib/libxcb-xkb.so /usr/lib/libxcb-xinerama.so /usr/lib/libxcb-randr.so /usr/lib/libxcb-shape.so /usr/lib/libxcb-util.so /usr/lib/libxcb-cursor.so /usr/lib/libxcb-keysyms.so /usr/lib/libxcb-icccm.so /usr/lib/libxcb-xrm.so /usr/lib/libxkbcommon.so /usr/lib/libxkbcommon-x11.so /usr/lib/libyajl.so /usr/lib/libpcre2-8.so /usr/lib/libcairo.so /usr/lib/libpangocairo-1.0.so /usr/lib/libpango-1.0.so /usr/lib/libgobject-2.0.so /usr/lib/libglib-2.0.so /usr/lib/libharfbuzz.so /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/14.1.1/../../../../lib/libev.so -Wl,--end-group
/usr/bin/ld: attempted static link of dynamic object `/usr/lib/libstartup-notification-1.so'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
[100/108] Compiling C object test.config_parser.p/src_config_parser.c.o
ninja: build stopped: subcommand failed.

[Samueru-sama]

I ended up making an appimage with the patch instead, was much easier than trying to get this to compile statically: https://github.com/Samueru-sama/i3-AppImage