Arch User Repository
Overview
Although Manjaro is very close to Arch Linux and mostly compatible —being based on Arch Linux itself— it is not possible to access their official repositories for use in Manjaro.
Instead, Manjaro uses its own repositories in order to ensure that any software packages that are accessible, such as system updates and applications, have been fully tested to be compatible and stable before release.
It is still possible to access additional software packages from the Arch User Repository (AUR).
The AUR is managed by the Arch Linux user community itself. Although this repository is unofficial, software packages first placed here can eventually make their way into Arch Linux's official (community) repository if they become popular enough.
AUR, as a community maintained repository, present potential risks and problems.
Possible risks using AUR packages:
- Multiple versions of the same packages.
- Out of date packages.
- Broken or only partially working packages.
- Improperly configured packages which download unnecessary dependencies, or do not download necessary dependencies, or both.
- Malicious packages (although extremely rare).
As such, although much of the software packages provided by the AUR should work, do not expect the installation process to always be quite as straight-forward as when you are using the official Manjaro repositories.
On occasion, it may be necessary to manually identify and install dependencies yourself (such as, after an aborted installation attempt).
Again, there is no guarantee that any installed software will work properly, if at all.
Accessing the AUR
1. Pamac GUI: graphical application Add/Remove Software application named Pamac.
2. Pamac CLI: command line tool pamac build aur-pkg-name.
3. Using Octopi. See this guide for enabling AUR support in Octopi.
Using GUI Pamac
Open Pamac - the name in menu is Add/Remove Software and navigate to the Preferences page. You will be required to enter your password to access it.
At Preferences page → seleetc the AUR tab → and move the slider to enable AUR.
Using commandline Pamac
Yay must be used in the terminal and is itself very similar to pacman to use; furthermore, as with pacman, it is not necessary to specify precise or complete package names in order to search for or download software. To search for and install software packages from the AUR, the syntax is:
pamac search -a [software package name]
For example, if wishing to install Visual Studio Code AUR version (a popular source code editor) enter visual studio as the query and a list of potential matches is shown. To build the example with pamac enter the following and press enter
pamac build visual-studio-code-bin
You will be presented with the outcome of the chosen build with all dependencies and you will be asked a couple of questions.
1. Query to edit build files. This is a precaution to verify that the build scripts does not contain malicious actions. 2. Query to continue download and install dependencies then download the sources, build and install the app.
You will be asked for your password before anything happens.
Installing from the AUR by hand
Manual
To do that follow the steps given below:
- Be sure you have the necessary files for building applications from source
pamac install base-devel git
- Download the tarball from the AUR preferably to ~/Downloads
(just click on the tarball from your browser and you should get it)
- Make a sub-directory in downloads called builds:
mkdir ~/Downloads/builds
-- Move the tarball to builds (Note that foo is a placeholder for the actual name of the package you've downloaded):
mv foo.tar.gz builds
-- Change directory to the builds folder-
cd builds
-- Untar the tarball
tar -xvf foo.tar.gz
-- Move into the new sub-directory
cd <foo>
- To make/compile the package, run:
makepkg -s
This will build the package and pull in any dependencies needed. Note: it won't pull a dependency from the AUR, only from the Manjaro Repos.
If you run
ls
you'll probably find a few new files. You're interested in the one that ends with .pkg.tar.xz (usually)
- The final event is running $sudo pacman -U on that file-
sudo pacman -U foo.pkg.xz
And you've done it...the safest way to install from the AUR.
This is essentially what most install scripts do for you.
Note: Instead of using sudo pacman -U foo.pkg.xz can also use:
makepkg -i
Note: To combine above steps into one:
makepkg -is
You can ask for support for installing by hand at the following link-[1]
(Courtesy bloomode for the tutorial).
Upgrading the packages installed from the AUR
The following command will upgrade all packages on the system including AUR builds
pamac upgrade -a