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.
I use Arch because pacman sounds cooler than apt, wakka wakka.
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.
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.
I admit I haven’t used Ubuntu in years, so I didn’t think they were that bad. Thanks for the info, it made me learn a dependency hell scenario I never thought about before.
It’s basically one reason I stopped using Ubuntu.
I wanted to use the up to date version of FFMPEG, had to download the binary from the website. Wanted to install some program that needed the latest version of KDE, had to install a PPA which updated a LOT of packages and at the end it would break many other apps installed from other PPAs.
At some point I realized using Arch was just much less work than worrying myself about all the dependencies that could break when you don’t stick to what’s available in their official repositories.
Ubuntu has Pacstall
The setup is kind of a kind of a logical fallacy here. More people are using Debian and RPM based distributions than Arch Linux. That being said:
Arch Linux has the AUR because at the time it was developed, the standards for distributing software on Linux were either RPM or DEB repositories. AUR was a necessity because one could get software on those distributions from the official vendor, but nobody was supporting Arch Linux. So it was a stopgap, an equalizer for one outlier platform.
It’s hardly the first such repository: FreeBSD ports and NetBSD pkgsrc predate the AUR by over a decade. Slackpkg predates AUR by a couple of years as well, though possibly not slapt-get. Gentoo has portage. Anyway, they took an idea that was already well-established, and catered it to a distribution that had fewer software options than major distributions.
These days it’s still the same scenario: a placeholder, to equalize what’s available for Arch Linux users versus other distributions.
People use Arch because it is a rolling release with a well-documented wiki. AUR is a nice perk, but hardly the main reason that people are using Arch Linux, given that other similar systems have existed for older distributions and operating systems for longer.
Yeah, the Arch Wiki is incredible, even as a non-Arch user, it’s such a valuable source of knowledge.
Fedora has COPR, Opensuse has the OBS (which also works for other distros), NixOS (my beloved) has overlays…
Probably for the same reasons why there are so many packaging formats in the first place. If everyone settled on deb, rpm, or arch style tar packages. Then we wouldn’t need the aur, flatpak, snap, appimage or anything else.
What’s so special about it? Isn’t it just a repository? Or am I missing something? If it’s just a repo, Ubuntu has PPAs and everyone and their mother is creating PPAs.
It’s a single, central, community space for build plans, which are extremely easy for anyone to create and submit.
Edit: And easier to audit than prebuilt packages
Arch is special 😁
I’mma let you finish, but Nix had one of the best package managers of all time.
Great, why do you need a whole OS centering around a package manager?
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?
AUR however, is untrusted (or rather shouldn’t be trusted), often out of date
So basically like a PPA which are used by many users of Ubuntu. The only difference is that the PKBUILD files used to build the packages are easier to check than the final packages in a PPA. And that’s exactly what is a big advantage for me.
sometimes requires compilation,
This is often because a project does not offer ready-made packages that can be downloaded from Github, for example. There are also people who do not trust ready-made packages from unknown third parties. I wouldn’t necessarily download and execute a binary file from a Dropbox of a user I don’t know. Compiling is the safer way if the source code is downloaded from a more trustworthy source.
and doesn’t even have any good pacman wrappers since yaourt (that I’m aware of).
Personally, I don’t think aurutils, paru and yay are bad. I currently use aurutils myself. But as far as AUR helpers are concerned, everyone has their own preferences. That’s why there are so many ;-)
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.
Yeah if the AUR can stop me from having to compile even just one package from instructions on a github page (like with corectrl, which I also use lol), then it’s enough for me to keep using arch. I will say, AUR is in the normal arch repo I think? But there’s other packages I’ve used in the past that I can’t find in there, like specific versions of mangohud or gamescope, goverlay, etc.
AUR still means you gotta compile sometimes, but it’s so much less of a hassle to just search the AUR and hit go then to mess around compiling something manually.
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.
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.
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Nah, it is my MAIN reason using Arch-based distro. If not because AUR, I should still using rock-solid Linux Mint… lol… 😅
