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LinuxLover471

Member

From: Asia, India

Registered: 2025-02-23

Posts: 154

[SOLVED] Why does the AUR have limited automation?

Hi! I hope that you are doing well.

I have learned a bit about the AUR and have recently started changing PKGBUILD's a little bit (For using GCC for compilation as I heard it's better for runtime performance than clang especially on older systems like mine?) and compiling git versions of programs.

I noticed that a mold-git named package on the AUR uses the latest upstream commits for building. But, the pkgname is actually much behind the current one 2.39.1.r4.g18c813a2-1 ,i.e., 2.40.3.r2.g9f5b7064-1

The problem arises from the fact that even if there is an update upstream, any aurhelper will simply not detect any update due to the old metadata of the package.

But it's also ridiculous to update versions for git versions by human effort, very frequent and unnecessary.

I just wanted to know what are your thoughts about this limited automation capability of the AUR, and what could be the reason for the design choice. Is this an oversight by the developers?

I don't want to trigger anyone, just here for the thoughts and possible workarounds.

P.S. Link to the package.

Thanks!

Last edited by LinuxLover471 (2025-08-05 03:34:35)

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,526

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Why does the AUR have limited automation?

PKGBUILDs don’t have their `pkgver` changed merely because upstream made a new commit.⁽¹⁾ One rebuilds a VCS package whenever one wishes to do so.

The presence of the git hash in `pkgver` is an artifact from how .SRCINFO is being generated. It picks up the version number generated by the `pkgver()` function. Which is the commit that happened to be be current when the .SRCINFO got generated.
____
⁽¹⁾ Per tradition, per practicality, and per guidelines:

Do not commit mere pkgver bumps for VCS packages. They are not considered out of date when the upstream has new commits. Only do a new commit when other changes are introduced, such as changing the build process.

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Paperclips in avatars? | Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!

Scimmia

Fellow

Registered: 2012-09-01

Posts: 13,248

Re: [SOLVED] Why does the AUR have limited automation?

The problem arises from the fact that even if there is an update upstream, any aurhelper will simply not detect any update due to the old metadata of the package.

That is a helper issue, not an AUR issue. I believe most helpers have ways to deal with this.

mpan

Member

Registered: 2012-08-01

Posts: 1,526

Website

Re: [SOLVED] Why does the AUR have limited automation?

I guess there may be a mental model problem here.

LinuxLover471: VCS packages and PKGBUILDs are not meant to reflect each and every commit to the upstream repository. This wouldn’t even make much sense, as many commits in the master branches are bugged, unstable, or outright unbuildable. Think of a VCS PKGBUILD as a recipe, that allows the system administrator to build from the version control system repo, when hey want to do it. As opposed to being bound to a single, specific commit.

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Paperclips in avatars? | Sometimes I seem a bit harsh — don’t get offended too easily!

LinuxLover471

Member

From: Asia, India

Registered: 2025-02-23

Posts: 154

Re: [SOLVED] Why does the AUR have limited automation?

Oh, I guess I understood that.

So, the AUR git packages aren't updated unless there is a major change rather than bumping versions. The PKGBUILD automatically picks up the latest commit and builds it on the user's system. It's like a script but not a script. When you have to update the package, just rebuild the package or reinstall it.

I actually use aurutils, I think the correct flag for doing this would be --rebuild passed along with a project like aur sync --rebuild mold-git

Okay! I guess I understand it now! Thanks for the explanation.

Marking as SOLVED.

Thank you!