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On your last point about installing software: I've used Ubuntu and Fedora, and finally settled on Arch ~4 years ago. Interestingly, although Arch has a reputati

On your last point about installing software: I've used Ubuntu and Fedora, and finally settled on Arch ~4 years ago. Interestingly, although Arch has a reputation of being a "DIY" distribution (in the sense that it targets power users), I've had way more trouble installing software on Ubuntu and Fedora than on Arch. Arch has what is called the Arch User Repository (AUR). It's a repository of recipes for building all kinds of software, and it's submitted and maintained by the users, not maintainers of the distro itself. Whenever there's a package missing in the official repositories, I almost always find it in the AUR. AUR has no binary builds---instead, you download files and scripts needed to build the software from source. You then run the makepkg utility, and you get a package you can install. (There are also helper programs which automate this whole process for you.) The result is that the package manager tracks the files properly, and you can keep track of which version you have, can remove the software cleanly, and update it whenever you like. Today, when I'm at a Ubuntu box, it's a pain in the ass to install some less-known software. I can download the sources and then try to build, and I usually succeed, but not before I've figured out the right flags, prefixes, build-time and run-time dependencies, etc. I also get questions pertaining to this from my friends that have recently switched to Linux, and I don't really have a solution to offer. Yes, there are PPAs, but more often than not, PPAs are outdated and are binary-only, meaning you can't really review how the binary packages came about. AUR really solves the problem nicely. I'd like to see such a concept in another, more beginner-friendly distribution, that I can then recommend to people around me who are considering making the switch.

type0 9y ago
> AUR really solves the problem nicely. I'd like to see such a concept in another, more beginner-friendly distribution, that I can then recommend to people around me who are considering making the switch. Yeah, I wish there were AUR for Ubuntu
pmoriarty 9y ago
How does Arch's AUR compare to Gentoo's portage?
greggyb 9y ago
Manjaro or another Arch-based distro might be the answer there?
cr0sh 9y ago
I tried arch a couple of years ago (in a VM), and while I liked it and the reasoning behind it, I had certain misgivings that led me away from it being considered for any future use. The main one being that whole AUR thing: What happens if there isn't a recipe in there? For example - you want to install something which only has a binary, no source, and can't be (legally) redistributed; what then? Well - to "install" the software, you basically have to go thru all of the steps to build your own recipe, noting down what you do manually, and eventually getting to the point where you have a script (or whatever) to install the software. Then, you undo all of your manual work, and run your arch package to do the real install. Tada - you now have a working package for that piece of software, and have spent potentially hours to get to that point. As a bonus, you can't redistribute that recipe, because it is based around a binary blob that was purchased and you don't have the rights to redistribute it. At least, that's how I interpreted it. I honestly don't recall what piece of software I wanted to use, but I think it may have been EagleCAD - which has a Linux port, but is binary only. I think it only has RPM and DEB packages, so to get it on arch, you'd have to build your own package. It wasn't so much the fact that you had to do this, just that it wasn't an easy and straightforward process (from what I recall), and if you only need to do it once or twice, it would be pretty arduous. Maybe by now (haven't looked) they have some kind of package conversion tool, which would be a great addition.

type0 9y ago

> AUR really solves the problem nicely. I'd like to see such a concept in another, more beginner-friendly distribution, that I can then recommend to people around me who are considering making the switch. Yeah, I wish there were AUR for Ubuntu

pmoriarty 9y ago

How does Arch's AUR compare to Gentoo's portage?

greggyb 9y ago

Manjaro or another Arch-based distro might be the answer there?

cr0sh 9y ago

I tried arch a couple of years ago (in a VM), and while I liked it and the reasoning behind it, I had certain misgivings that led me away from it being considered for any future use. The main one being that whole AUR thing: What happens if there isn't a recipe in there? For example - you want to install something which only has a binary, no source, and can't be (legally) redistributed; what then? Well - to "install" the software, you basically have to go thru all of the steps to build your own recipe, noting down what you do manually, and eventually getting to the point where you have a script (or whatever) to install the software. Then, you undo all of your manual work, and run your arch package to do the real install. Tada - you now have a working package for that piece of software, and have spent potentially hours to get to that point. As a bonus, you can't redistribute that recipe, because it is based around a binary blob that was purchased and you don't have the rights to redistribute it. At least, that's how I interpreted it. I honestly don't recall what piece of software I wanted to use, but I think it may have been EagleCAD - which has a Linux port, but is binary only. I think it only has RPM and DEB packages, so to get it on arch, you'd have to build your own package. It wasn't so much the fact that you had to do this, just that it wasn't an easy and straightforward process (from what I recall), and if you only need to do it once or twice, it would be pretty arduous. Maybe by now (haven't looked) they have some kind of package conversion tool, which would be a great addition.