What software only works on Arch? If anything I see stuff thatβs packaged for arch but can be installed from source on other distros without issue.
Ubuntu-only software, on the other hand, is infuriating
There's a lot of content packaged for the AUR that isn't readily available to people using less enlightened distributions.
I use Arch BTW.
Seriousposting: a lot of software just isn't packaged as deb or rpm because no one has taken the time to do it. The AUR is really fucking convenient as an end user. And yes, you should always skim AUR packages to be sure they're doing what they claim to do and aren't garbage, anyone can post anything. I have seen a lot of trash uploaded to the AUR.
I used to think the A in AUR stood for anarchy
There are many things that can stop me from running a program but what distro I'm using is not one of them.
Become distro-agnostic. Don't be afraid of source code.
Seriously, look at what the pkgbuild is doing on Arch and replicate it by hand on your distro of choice. That's all a pkgbuild is: a simple bash installation script.
I like your funny words, computer man. πππ
I use KDE Neon, btw.
True but dependency hell and maintaining updates for that is a headache I wish not to deal with.
Configure and make are your best friends.
Just don't worry about timely updates.
timely updates
You mean I shouldn't git pull; git checkout HEAD; sudo make install every day?
Distrobox is your friend. Me, I like an immutable OS (kinoite) but I still want the AUR...
distrobox-create --name arch --image archlinux:latest
distrobox enter arch
install yay as normal
yay -S vscodium
distrobox-export --app vscodium
yay exa
distrobox-export --bin /usr/sbin/exa
exit [back to kinoite]
exa [works]
vscodium [works, has icon in application launcher]
Try it, you might like it !
Also great when you get some software as a deb for old Ubuntu and don't want the trouble of manually making it work on a new system. Just make an old Ubuntu distrobox.
./configure
make
sudo make install
Later: how to uninstall this app?
Thanks, Now excuse me while I put a million compiler flags to optimse my program by 1 nanosecond and contemplate the reasons for human existence.
cannot find libxyz.so.1
And so the journey continues, deep into the forest of antiquated build systems and bleeding edge dependencies
You Linux people are funny.
I just download the Windows versions and run them with Wine.
I don't understand any of this, my windows install is on a 120GB SSD, it's full now and I can't update my graphics driver.
finds complete updated AUR package
am running Fedora
Proceeds to unpack AUR and reverse engineer what it does so you can get what you need
True story for some stupid ethernet driver patch: alx-wol-dkms
AUR stronk
Very very very rarely some stuff on it is sometimes orphaned or outdated, but it's really fucking great to simply "paru" and the thing I want.
TFW you're caught between being an average person and tech nerd wizard, just competent to copy/paste ubuntu-based install instructions in the terminal but get a headache trying to compile from source. I use Mint, btw.
I consider myself relatively familiar with linux, people come to me when they have issues or need help setting something up
But compiling stuff from source? That still gives me headaches π©
AUR is love, AUR is life π
This is what always leads me back to arch. I can follow an outdated 12-step guide to installing the software in Debian or I can install it with one command from AUR.
Depending on the software, you can use it inside an arch Linux distrobox with yay or some other helper
./configure && make && sudo make install
Get off my lawn.
I'm a noob, isn't every (open source) program aviable for every distribution if you compile it from source? It's all Linux in the end (i never compiled a program from source, so I don't know if it's easy at all)
Some programs may use libraries or tools specific to a distributions package manager. For example, yay, an AUR helper/pacman wrapper. You would have a very hard time getting it to work on Debian.
Other programs might only include build scripts for a distro specific build system. For example, a program might skip using a Makefile, and do everything in the Arch-specific PKGBUILD.
Generally though, most software uses a standard cross-distro (or even OS) build system. In this case, compiling from source would be an option on any distro. The program might still only be packaged for Arch/NixOS/Gentoo (or others), as it is a very simple process to do so.
fr though why is the AUR specific to Arch when its pretty much an automated build/binary blob installer? I dont know much but it really seems like the AUR could easily be made available on other distros and renamed to LUR.
AUR maintainer for a few niche packages here. It's because it lowers the barrier of entry. Remember this is all a volunteer effort.
What do I do when someone running ubuntu reports an error saying the PKGBUILD doesn't work?
What if the program fails due to a different version of the kernel? (True story, only after 2 weeks of debugging I found out that the user was running Manjaro, which used a different naming convention for the kernel)
What do I do if someone reports a missing library dependency on fedora? Should I also package that library for fedora?
If I'm packaging drivers for specific hardware. I'm not going to install a specific distro just to fix your issue (sorry!). Most of my advice is given on a best effort basis. I made these build scripts for myself since I want native installs for all my software, and thought other people may be interested in them as well. If the responsibility of maintaining them becomes too overwhelming (like with your LUR case). I'll probably host these build scripts in a private repo instead.
I think it might be because of dependencies that might not be the same version on other distros
Now that I think of it, if i follow it to the logical conclusions of using a container to build and manage dependencies for each individual package across multiple distros all I've come up with is a self-building flatpak and/or VanillaOS π
I use arch btw
distrobox for most cases should be fine...
Funny meme. NixOS has more packages than the AUR
The AUR has more eyes on it though and can be more up to date. Getting OBS plugins "wrapped" was a pain in the ass in NixOS and they were out of date. But I'll admit it's a pretty niche example.
*only if you count different versions as different packages.
This is not a problem, I use garuda btw.
Can't you just use it though distrobox and podman?
Not as easy or as convenient as yay -Sy appname
...or nixpkgs they have the most packages of any distro (although, I don't know if they also count all the language specific libs like from pypi, npm, crates, etc.)
Just do whatever the package file says.
Hint: :q!
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