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this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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I have to say I dont get the AUR I have been using Debian for the past 20 years and have tried Arch based out on my steam deck and in Distrobox on my sid gaming PC and I just don't get it.
I hear all these great things about the AUR but when I tried it. It didn't seem to be that much easier than building a Deb pkg or doing a make install from source. the way I hear people talk about it I figured it was just like installing from a source Repo on Debian.
please note I'm not saying anything bad about Arch I personally love the arch wiki it's great to even fix things in Debian. I just personally don't get it. maybe I'm not using it right or distobox does not give me the full experience. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?
For me, AURs main advantage is the huge library of software available. No mess resolving dependencies like when manually building from source and no issues with 3rd party repos breaking each others dependencies like in PPA
yeah I get dependency resolution from apt build-dep in Debian but like what commands do you use to build a package with the AUR. From what I read it's
search the AUR website git clone tar xf pag.tar makepkg -csi packagename
am I missing something or is there an easier way that I am just not seeing?
i promise I'm not trolling I really want to learn.
In Manjaro you just run this command, there's a GU package manager as well, but I've never used it. Pamac takes care of downloading / building any required dependencies and the AUR repo includes any required patches for the application run well on Arch / Manjaro.
pamac build
I haven't used Arch in years, but I believe it was something similar.
The whole system is pretty similar to, (but more refined than) FreeBSDs Ports tree.
but can you search the AUR from the CLI or or do you still need to git clone then pacmac build with the package buildID?
Not sure why noone has pointed this out but if you use paru or yay instead of pacman, installing/searching the AUR is the same as if they are in the main repo. It does all the building etc for you.
hmm okay thanks I will check those out maybe that is the missing piece.
so paru is the equivalent to apt-build install
but unlike Debian the Repo is outside the distribution.
i think I'm getting it thank you while I have no interest in leaving debian but this will be fun in distrobox.
To be specific..
Install something from the main repo:
$ paru -S packageInstall something from the AUR:
$ paru -S packageTo search for a package, in the main repo or the AUR:
$ paru -Ss search-termWith the search results, it clearly labels if something is from the AUR or extras or the main repo, and you can make it show AUR results first or last in the config.
https://github.com/Morganamilo/paru
I don't actually use pacman directly at all, I use paru for everything and it's seamless.
For me the benefit of AUR isn't necessarily the ease of download. It's the fact that it's community based and anyone can build a package for any software. I always git clone and then makepkg. I hate using yay because I want to read the PKGBLD myself and check the hash. I've found some obscure software via AUR that I wouldn't be able to easily download on other distros. Further more the AUR website allows comments from the community which encourages bug fixes and/or a dialogue with specific package issues.