Trying to find a better AUR manager.

[Gat Pelsinger]

The AUR is awesome but the managers are not. Just for context, I ranted on how heavy and bloated AUR managers can get. But I have a few questions before I proceed.

 

I saw that not all packages need to be compiled. Some have the binary which I just install.

 

I also found a minor yet inconvenient bug. So there is this browser called Thorium, which is a blazing fast fork of Chromium. On the AUR, it is just registered as "thorium-browser-bin". But in reality, it has different versions like AVX, AVX2, and SSE3. If I use yay and install it, it always gets the SSE3 one (that too a .deb file on Arch). If I use the auracle helper, which is just a git clone downloader, it downloads but in the folder, I have different PKGBUILD files for the different architectures. All I have to do is run makepkg -si on the file and it installs it.

 

So it is that easy to manually install the packages? Nonetheless, the bloat is still there. I still have the source files, dependencies, and some additional bloat. If it is that easy to install the packages, what if I do not use an AUR helper in the first place? But then I would have to go manually searching the AUR for packages. Is there a better and automated way to do this?

 

Probably what I am looking for is how to clean up stuff after installing from the AUR. As I have mentioned, I do not care about the source files that are generated and would also like to completely purge the dependencies. What if the most reliable way to do this?

 

At the last, I am probably looking for a different helper. Yay is written in Go, which itself is heavier to run and store (but not too much). I said that I have used auracle, but it just clones the git repos and doesn't build them. On the Arch wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_helpers, what is better, a pacman wrapper, or search and build helpers?

[BoomerDutch]

Man just build your own Linux at this point.

You find everything bloat.

 

Set a simple limit to what's bloat or not and live with it.

 

I'm distro hopping everytime anyway till i find perfect one like most people are.

 

Sometimes you gotta accept what you got live with it or move on.

[Nayr438]

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I also found a minor yet inconvenient bug. So there is this browser called Thorium, which is a blazing fast fork of Chromium. On the AUR, it is just registered as "thorium-browser-bin". But in reality, it has different versions like AVX, AVX2, and SSE3. If I use yay and install it, it always gets the SSE3 one (that too a .deb file on Arch).

Because it clones the repo as is and runs makepkg against the default target which is the default PKGBUILD.

If you want to specific on alternative PKGBUILD then pass "--mflags"
 

yay -S thorium-browser-bin --mflags "-p PKGBUILD.avx"

Of course when you update it will attempt to use the default PKGBUILD.
yay being a pacman wrapper can however follow pacman's ignorepkg rule in "/etc/pacman.conf"

IgnorePkg    = podman-desktop

which will give you a message similair to the below when you run "yay -Syu" and there is a update.

 -> podman-desktop: ignoring package upgrade (1.9.1-1 => 1.10.0-1)

 

It's also not uncommon to find bin PKGBUILD's using packages from other distros.

 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

If I use the auracle helper, which is just a git clone downloader, it downloads but in the folder, I have different PKGBUILD files for the different architectures. All I have to do is run makepkg -si on the file and it installs it.

 

So it is that easy to manually install the packages?

Yes. The intended way to use the AUR is

• to find a package such as thorium-browser-bin
• git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/thorium-browser-bin.git
• cd thorium-browser-bin
• makepkg -si

 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Nonetheless, the bloat is still there. I still have the source files, dependencies, and some additional bloat. If it is that easy to install the packages, what if I do not use an AUR helper in the first place?

AUR helpers are technically considered unsupported. In fact there is a warning at the top of the Wiki Article you linked.

 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

But then I would have to go manually searching the AUR for packages. Is there a better and automated way to do this?

That's the point of AUR helpers...

 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Probably what I am looking for is how to clean up stuff after installing from the AUR. As I have mentioned, I do not care about the source files that are generated and would also like to completely purge the dependencies. What if the most reliable way to do this?

adding "removemake" to your yay config will automatically remove all make depends after install.

yay -S --save --removemake

which will save it to "~/.config/yay/config.json"

You can run the following to clean yay's cache

yay -Scc --aur --noconfirm

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Nayr438

 

If so, I can manually do with a bit of bash scripting. One reason to use an helper is to search for packages on the AUR. How can I do this in bash (with maybe a little help from AI ). Like how would I actually ping the AUR mirror recursively search for packages?

 

And after I do lock on the package, I just git clone it, and run makepkg command, right?

 

edit - Updating packages is also something to implement. This way I will end up making my own AUR helper. I really should try out some other helpers.

[Nayr438]

3 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Like how would I actually ping the AUR mirror recursively search for packages?

curl https://aur.archlinux.org/rpc/v5/search/thorium | jq

 

and the "URLPath" is a snapshot of the current pkgbuild repo

curl -O https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/thorium-browser-bin.tar.gz
tar -xzf thorium-browser-bin.tar.gz

or you can just git clone via the name

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/thorium-browser-bin.git

If you want to know more about the RPC interface check

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Aurweb_RPC_interface
• https://aur.archlinux.org/rpc/swagger

[Sauron]

On 4/29/2024 at 11:54 PM, Gat Pelsinger said:

If I use the auracle helper, which is just a git clone downloader, it downloads but in the folder, I have different PKGBUILD files for the different architectures. All I have to do is run makepkg -si on the file and it installs it.

 

So it is that easy to manually install the packages?

Not only is it that easy, it's the only officially supported way. Just read the wiki page. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Arch_User_Repository

 

Specifying build flags can be done in /etc/makepkg.conf regardless of which aur manager you use (if any).

On 4/29/2024 at 11:54 PM, Gat Pelsinger said:

Nonetheless, the bloat is still there. I still have the source files, dependencies, and some additional bloat.

That's not what bloat means under any definition. If the sources on your disk bug you, just delete them. If you don't need the build dependencies, uninstall them after the fact.

 

By the way, yay will ask you if you want to remove them automatically. If you don't like the automatism, do it manually as the arch devs intended.

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Nayr438 @Sauron

 

Ok, right now I am actually really mad. I had this question that even if I am downloading just the binary, there is still a lot of stuff going on like fakeroot environment, and compressing image and what not. Just installing the binary from the original source takes way less time and generates literally no bloat.

 

Even if I am just downloading the Kernel using yay, it still doing a lot of stuff instead of just installing the Kernel, whereas Pacman does nothing of that crap.

 

I am so mad right now, because I just tried installing the otf-fira-code package which is the Fira Code font, and OH MY GOD. I do not know what in god's name it was doing but It needed a LOT of dependencies, just to install a FONT for some reason, and then took a lot of minutes to who knows what compiling stuff (probably the dependencies itself). What the hell do you need to just grab the fonts and put it in the fonts folder? Is it pixel by pixel generating the font? And why the hell do I need these many dependencies, like some python and ttf stuff, and to make it worse, compile them. That ended by taking gigabytes of space. I am never using the AUR. F**k this shit.

 

EDIT - So apparently I was installing the package when I was writing this. At the end, some repos failed to download from the servers and the package did not install. I quit. This AUR disappointment keeps getting worse.

[Sauron]

10 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

What the hell do you need to just grab the fonts and put it in the fonts folder?

because. it's. building. from. source.

 

and if you look at the dependencies for the pkgbuild, it requires some aur python modules which themselves have dependencies and need to be built from source. if that makes you mad, get a binary only distribution - but then maybe stop chasing the "most hardcore haxxor diy distro" if you're not willing to even understand how they work. the advantage of the AUR, compared to other distributions that don't have something like it, is that you have access to a much wider variety of packages that you would otherwise have to manually build and find the dependencies for; if that's not something you care about then just use something else.

[Nayr438]

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

I am so mad right now, because I just tried installing the otf-fira-code package which is the Fira Code font, and OH MY GOD. I do not know what in god's name it was doing but It needed a LOT of dependencies, just to install a FONT for some reason, and then took a lot of minutes to who knows what compiling stuff (probably the dependencies itself).

It would help if you would actually learn how the AUR and a PKGBUILD works, as well as how AUR helpers work.
So lets look at otf-fira-code-git, which clones https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode, then runs https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode/blob/master/script/build.sh, which requires the following dependencies

Spoiler

 

• gftools AUR (make)
• git (make)
• python-compreffor AUR (make)
• python-fontmake AUR (make)
• python-idna (make)
• python-pillow (make)
• python-requests (make)
• python-urllib3 (make)
• sfnt2woff-zopfli AUR (make)
• ttfautohintAUR (make)
• woff2 (make)

 

which also have their own dependencies and any of them from the AUR also need to be compiled.

 

Your not just installing a font, your literally building it.

 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

EDIT - So apparently I was installing the package when I was writing this. At the end, some repos failed to download from the servers and the package did not install. I quit. This AUR disappointment keeps getting worse.

AUR Packages python-skia-pathops and otf-fira-code-git require manual intervention.
You could have also ran into having an out of sync pacman db or dependency ordering. Dependency ordering is when you try to build something but it's deps are not yet available.

 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

What the hell do you need to just grab the fonts and put it in the fonts folder? Is it pixel by pixel generating the font? And why the hell do I need these many dependencies, like some python and ttf stuff, and to make it worse, compile them.

I'm not sure what part of most everything in the AUR is built from source your not understanding.

 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Ok, right now I am actually really mad. I had this question that even if I am downloading just the binary, there is still a lot of stuff going on like fakeroot environment, and compressing image and what not. Just installing the binary from the original source takes way less time and generates literally no bloat.

Because it needs to be packaged for Arch so it can be tracked and managed. When you just copy a file or run something like "make install" against the system, pacman has no idea that it even exists.
 

2 hours ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

Even if I am just downloading the Kernel using yay, it still doing a lot of stuff instead of just installing the Kernel, whereas Pacman does nothing of that crap.

Because pacman pulls from a repo of compiled packages, not the AUR...

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Nayr438

 

Hm, thanks for making me understand how the AUR works. But still though, if I am not doing anything wrong, then this is a very unreliable way of installing stuff, especially just a font. I would be doing this if I am into compiling everything from source, which I am, but I don't have that much compute for it to be reliable.

 

I also didn't know what a font actually is, like I thought maybe some image files (not really but a vague understanding). I guess when you vectors, geometry, ligatures, etc., it does become something that you need to compile, at least with the settings of your system.

 

But If I can get that same thing as a binary without needing to build it, with almost no disadvantage, then why would I go compile it, unless I really need to for some reason.

[Nayr438]

Just now, Gat Pelsinger said:

Hm, thanks for making me understand how the AUR works. But still though, if I am not doing anything wrong, then this is a very unreliable way of installing stuff, especially just a font.

Well yea, It's community maintained, anyone can upload a PKGBUILD to the AUR. As a result they can be poorly made, poorly maintained, orphaned, malicious, etc..

It's up to you to determine whether a AUR PKGBUILD is safe and usable.
 

2 minutes ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

But If I can get that same thing as a binary without needing to build it, with almost no disadvantage, then why would I go compile it, unless I really need to for some reason.

Depends on what it is. If it's something your just going to install to your local home, then yea there isn't much reason to go through the build process and package it. If you however want it to be part of the system and be able to track and manage it easily after install, then you want it to be packaged for that Distro.

With that said you can make your own local PKGBUILD's that do just grab the pre-compiled binaries from external sources, you still have to build the package, but you won't have to build the source or rely on the AUR community.

[10leej]

On 4/29/2024 at 5:54 PM, Gat Pelsinger said:

The AUR is awesome but the managers are not. Just for context, I ranted on how heavy and bloated AUR managers can get. But I have a few questions before I proceed.

 

I saw that not all packages need to be compiled. Some have the binary which I just install.

 

I also found a minor yet inconvenient bug. So there is this browser called Thorium, which is a blazing fast fork of Chromium. On the AUR, it is just registered as "thorium-browser-bin". But in reality, it has different versions like AVX, AVX2, and SSE3. If I use yay and install it, it always gets the SSE3 one (that too a .deb file on Arch). If I use the auracle helper, which is just a git clone downloader, it downloads but in the folder, I have different PKGBUILD files for the different architectures. All I have to do is run makepkg -si on the file and it installs it.

 

So it is that easy to manually install the packages? Nonetheless, the bloat is still there. I still have the source files, dependencies, and some additional bloat. If it is that easy to install the packages, what if I do not use an AUR helper in the first place? But then I would have to go manually searching the AUR for packages. Is there a better and automated way to do this?

 

Probably what I am looking for is how to clean up stuff after installing from the AUR. As I have mentioned, I do not care about the source files that are generated and would also like to completely purge the dependencies. What if the most reliable way to do this?

 

At the last, I am probably looking for a different helper. Yay is written in Go, which itself is heavier to run and store (but not too much). I said that I have used auracle, but it just clones the git repos and doesn't build them. On the Arch wiki https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/AUR_helpers, what is better, a pacman wrapper, or search and build helpers?

There's a flag for yay that cleans up and removes the source files....

[Gat Pelsinger]

@Nayr438

 

Well this looks fancy

 

[Nayr438]

1 hour ago, Gat Pelsinger said:

@Nayr438

 

Well this looks fancy

 

Its a unofficial user repository. I don't have a positive opinion on the "chaotic-aur" since they partnered with Garuda, but it is a option as well as the ones listed at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unofficial_user_repositories

[thiccbeard4linux]

On 5/2/2024 at 3:57 PM, 10leej said:

There's a flag for yay that cleans up and removes the source files....

Yup, or you could build in a ram disk.  Not sure why OP doesn't want to use yay

[wasab]

On 5/2/2024 at 5:58 AM, Nayr438 said:

Depends on what it is. If it's something your just going to install to your local home, then yea there isn't much reason to go through the build process and package it.

Honestly, this is what I always do with stuffs downloaded from the internet and outside the package manager. Just create a bin dir in your home and add it to your path. Create a .desktop inside your applications dir if it has a gui.

[Thomas4]

EASIEST WAY TO INSTALL  ANY APPLICATION WITH A .DEB EXTENSION IN ARCH (OR ANY OF IT'S DERIVATIVES)

Especially good for beginners who don't have the ability to understand the usually bewildering advice given in the Arch Forums or even worse the Arch guides. Being said both sources are valuable sources of information.

 

Just go to the website and download it from there, caution it's only available as a .deb file.

To install on Arch

Step 1.  install debtap       yay -S debtap

Step 2.  update database sudo debtap -u

Step 3. CD to where you downloaded thorium***.deb    This is usually your Downloads folder

Step 4. debtap application    This creates an Arch installable package.

Step 5. ls This step verifies that the package was created successfully NOTE: It will have a .zst extension

Step 6. sudo pacman -U  thorium***.zst   This will install the package in your system

 

NOTE: Commands are ITALIZED and COMMENTS are underlined