Installing awesome is pretty straightforward:

	tar xzvf awesome.tar.gz
	cd awesome
	make
	make install

will install awesome in /usr/local.
Note that you'll need [`libconfig`](http://www.hyperrealm.com/libconfig/libconfig.html) and X developement files installed first.

PS: Debian's libconfig is not what you want. See [bug#441200](http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=441200).