I admit AUR was a huge reason why I made the move to Arch. But with Flatpak gaining more and more traction, the benefits of AUR are shrinking fast.
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2023
173 points (94.4% liked)
Linux
48008 readers
1060 users here now
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).
Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to operating systems running the Linux kernel. GNU/Linux or otherwise.
- No misinformation
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
The AUR still has a lot of niche software that hasn't been Flatpakked, but yeah. Flatpaks are way more convenient, especially for large software where AUR compilation can take a long time.
The other day I died of old age compiling Librewolf from the AUR
What's wrong with librewolf-bin? Would you choose the Flatpack or the bin from the AUR?
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
Agreed. DaVinci Resolve Studio and Blackmagic hardware drivers are examples of that kind of niche software that I use on a regular basis. The only supported route for that stuff is RHEL/CentOS, and those don’t seem particularly well-suited to my main machine’s other purpose, which is games. If someone’s already done the legwork to solve the problem for Arch, and the build files check out, why reinvent the wheel?
Additionally, it’s the only distro I could get Resolve Studio working on with an AMD GPU consistently.
For the most part, though, the official repos and Flathub give me what I need.
load more comments
(1 replies)
I do really like AUR, but agree Flatpak is a good alternative. I can’t stand snap, snap packages just feel slower.
Main reason I like the AUR is for really niche packages that aren't in any main repos. Smaller github projects, forks of main projects that fix bugs, basically anything that you would otherwise have to compile from source is on the AUR. And while you still might have to compile it, it's all setup and managed for you, which I really like.
load more comments
(10 replies)
The majority of other distros value package managers that allow for complex graph evaluation of dependencies, and the ability to roll back. This is granted with rpm and Deb, but not for pkgsource, which is a pretty lightweight format compared to those.
As for AUR, the major distros (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora) support 3p repositories as well. The main concern is security. IIRC one of major complaints for AUR in the past was that it didn't foresee a strongly secure distribution system.
openSUSE has OBS, Fedora has COPR, and I'm pretty sure both Gentoo and NixOS have similar stuff. Do Ubuntu's PPAs count? Flatpaks and AppImages are also similar, although they are more limited and they aren't exactly "standard" packages.
PPAs are fundamentally flawed. Since each repository is separate, they only care to maintain consistency internally, plus the packages of the Ubuntu version they were based on.
Adding a PPA and using its packages on your system takes your dependency tree into a "cul de sac" where only that PPA is reliable.
But of course people use multiple PPAs so what happens is that the dependency tree grows increasingly unrecoverable.
Eventually you get the dreaded "requires X but cannot be installed" errors which pretty much mean you've hit a dead end. You can recover your system from it (aptitude can provide solutions) but they are extremely invasive, basically come down to uninstalling and reinstalling thousands of packages to bring your tree back to a manageable state.
load more comments
(3 replies)
OBS and COPR don't even come close to the AUR in terms of ease of use. AUR is one searchable index, OBS and COPR are more like separate repositories that you have to find and add manually. There's multiple people building the same packages and you have to figure out which one you want to rely on. You also can't easily edit the packaging instructions and rebuild a package if it doesn't work for you.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Ubuntu has Pacstall
load more comments
(1 replies)
when it’s the main reason why so many people use Arch Linux?
AUR is one reason why I use Arch. But not the reason. Besides AUR, Arch has many other advantages from my point of view. Like for example the wiki that also users of other distributions use. Or the many vanilla packages. Or that you can easily create your own packages through the PKGBUILD files. Or that, based on my own experience, Arch is quite problem-free to use despite the current packages.
One reason why other distributions don't have something like AUR could be that AUR is not an official offering, so no verification is done in advance either. Thus, it has happened at least once that someone has manipulated PKGBUILD files in bad faith (https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/aur-general/2018-July/034151.html). The Wiki does not warn against the use for nothing.
However, it is much easier for the user to check the files in the AUR in advance than it is, for example, with ready-made packages in an unofficial PPA.
With https://build.opensuse.org and https://mpr.makedeb.org there are also at least two offers that are somewhat similar to AUR.
Arch has many other advantages from my point of view. Like for example the wiki that also users of other distributions use.
I remember when started using #! and then Debian with Openbox. It didn't matter what problem I had, the answer and solution were always in the Arch Wiki.
Now I am full Arch user.
NixOS has NUR, but it's not necessary because they take everyone's pull requests in the official repo. I've been maintaining the software I use myself on the official nixpkgs, so I don't need to use the NUR.
Asbestos undies on.
I don't think AUR is a feature, but more of a hazard indicator. If the distributor isn't packaging so many important things that most users have to turn to external services regularly, they're lying down on the job.
I think you misunderstand the typical use case for the AUR. It's generally used to install fairly niche software that might fly under the radar of distro maintainers. For example, I have CoreCtrl, a utility for managing AMD GPUs, on my install via the AUR. I'm not aware of any distro that packages it currently because it's just too niche of a use case right now for maintainers to pay it any mind.
I guess I was baffled when FVWM of all things was an AUR package. To me, that's something that's been available in the mainstream package set on almost any full-sized x86/x86-64 distribution made in the last 25 years. I suppose it's not popular these days, but you sort of expect it to materialize because it was checked into auto-build processes in the late Clinton administration and never removed.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Well that would apply to any distro I've used.. they're all going to have things that aren't in the main repos. It's a feature for Arch in that on nearly every other distro it's probably going to be more of a pain to install them.
Fedora has COPR, Opensuse has the OBS (which also works for other distros), NixOS (my beloved) has overlays...
I've been on NixOS for about a week now and I can say I've got access to pretty much all of the packages I was using on Arch just from nixpkgs. I even found it quite easy to package stuff myself!
Same. Exactly. Packaging can be a bit more complex, but once you get it, it's great. There's even the NUR, but I havent used it.
load more comments
(3 replies)
What makes you think there aren't equivalents out there?
Gentoo's Guru repository, for one, and any of the multitude of ebuild repositories available through the eselect repository command.
The AUR is not particularly special.
load more comments
(3 replies)
I use Arch because pacman sounds cooler than apt, wakka wakka.
AUR is really not that great? Who moves to Arch for it? It's been my main OS for I don't even know how long but AUR has been my primary pain point. PKGBUILD is cool and useful useful. AUR however, is untrusted (or rather shouldn't be trusted), often out of date, sometimes requires compilation, and doesn't even have any good pacman wrappers since yaourt (that I'm aware of).
Am I missing something?
doesn’t even have any good pacman wrappers since yaourt (that I’m aware of).
paru is cool
load more comments
(2 replies)
Don't know. The AUR is a big reason I use Arch. Obviously there's PPAs/OBS or whatever but they're not implemented nearly as well, I don't need to go searching for new repos with the AUR or messing with repo priorities (fun times on Suse...) since everything is in the one place and there's procedures for taking over orphaned packages. I use about twenty or so packages from it, many of them not packaged for any other distro. Personally not interested in using Flatpak since two package management systems is not my idea of KISS. Poor man's AUR imo :).
load more comments
(3 replies)
I'mma let you finish, but Nix had one of the best package managers of all time.
load more comments
(5 replies)
The equivalent for Gentoo is the overlay system. gpo.zugaina.org (which is the best total package index) claims to list over 100000 ebuilds for 56000 different packages (some packages have multiple versions in-tree), and I know their database is not complete, since I contribute occasionally to an overlay that they don't index. Oh, and that also doesn't include things like perl library packages autogenerated by g-cpan.
So, um, yeah, useful but not unique.
Because the AUR is a pretty low quality repo. Not sure if anything has changed since 2 years ago, but last I used arch, the AUR was full of broken, abandoned, and unbuildable packages. The Debian repos, fedora+rpmfusion, etc, provide a comparable number of software packages with substantially higher quality, hence no need for the AUR. Fedora actually has COPRs which suffer from the same quality issues as the AUR for similar reasons.
Thing is, the AUR isn't really meant to be your primary repo. You can really get anything into the AUR.
The reason why I love it so much is because if I need a package that's not in the main arch repo (which tbh isn't many), then I don't need to bother going to some github page and compiling from source, I can just find it in the AUR and it's all done for me. I did this with things like goverlay and it's one thing that I immediately miss when I distro hop away from something arch-based.
AUR is definitely not the reason people choose arch haha
Fellow Linux folks, this direction is one of the main problems and you know it very darn well.
Nah, it is my MAIN reason using Arch-based distro. If not because AUR, I should still using rock-solid Linux Mint.. lol.. 😅
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
I think looking at the two major enterprise players (Red Hat and Canonical) can give hints.
Fedora: run by Red Hat, upstream of RHEL. No way they are going to allow an unreviewed repository to be shipped with fedora by default. But they do have guides to add RPM fusion, and copr repos (the closest equivalent)
Ubuntu: run by Canonical. No way they are going to allow an unreviewed repository to be shipped with Ubuntu by default. But they do host and have guides for PPAs (closest AUR equivalent)
Debian: kind of the base layer for a lot of other distros. Debian itself is kept very minimal, and has a whole philosophy on what packages are allowed.
Edit: I realized this implies PPAs, copr and the AUR are the same when I know they aren’t functionally. I am just trying to highlight the motivations behind the distros and how it may play a part
PPAs aren't convenient at all compared to the AUR. Pacstall is the AUR for Ubuntu it just needs more packages. I would still be on Linux Mint if Pacstall was as extensive as the AUR.
load more comments
(1 replies)
For my needs I found that that flatpak just werks for anything not on the distros repos. And for the really obscure stuff I've used, I could just build from source
load more comments
(1 replies)
Many distros have independent community generated package repositories though most aren't on official infrastructure. Ubuntu has PPA which is close. I try and avoid AUR as much as I can. It is a potential attack surface and packages are sometimes poorly maintained and break. I like it for system stuff and I mostly review the PKGBUILD. It seems like a good way for software to find a path into the official repos. There was a lot of resistance from me initially but for most desktop applications flatpak has proven to be a better solution.
view more: next ›