Arch Linux

jiewmeng

Member

Registered: 2012-02-09

Posts: 118

Is installing from AUR similar to install from source?

I wonder if installing applications from AUR is similar to installing from source? Recently I have a problem where Eclipse SWT embeded browser is broken and 1 solution is installing firefox from source. So I wonder if installing from AUR is similar as installing from source?

StackOverflow question about broken SWT Browser

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graysky

Wiki Maintainer

From: :wq

Registered: 2008-12-01

Posts: 10,597

Website

Re: Is installing from AUR similar to install from source?

Read the wiki about this dude.  The short answer is, assuming the author of the PKGBUILD wrote it correctly is, yes.

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Xyne

Administrator/PM

Registered: 2008-08-03

Posts: 6,963

Website

Re: Is installing from AUR similar to install from source?

It depends on what you mean by "install from source".

To install a package from the AUR, you download the PKGBUILD and then use makepkg to build the package. Makepkg downloads and compiles the source files, so in that sense you are "installing from source", but it creates a package that can be installed with pacman, so in that sense it's not the same as installing directly from source.

Never install anything directly.  Always use makepkg to create a pacman package. Any changes that you need can be made in the PKGBUILD. If you want to change one of the official repo packages, use ABS. You can use pbget to download PKGBUILDs too. If a PKGBUILD doesn't already exist, create one.

Installing anything directly leads to clutter and problems.

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ngoonee

Forum Fellow

From: Between Thailand and Singapore

Registered: 2009-03-17

Posts: 7,355

Re: Is installing from AUR similar to install from source?

Some of the packages I maintain don't install from source, they just repackage deb or rpm

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hadrons123

Member

From: chennai

Registered: 2011-10-07

Posts: 1,249

Re: Is installing from AUR similar to install from source?

Some of the packages I maintain don't install from source, they just repackage deb or rpm

google chrome and some versions of firefox are binary.

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ewaller

Administrator

From: Pasadena, CA

Registered: 2009-07-13

Posts: 19,772

Re: Is installing from AUR similar to install from source?

You may also be interested in ABS.  ABS is the official build system for Arch.  Things supported by Developers go into Core and Extra, things supported by trusted users go into community.  To get the packages for the extra (which is where firefox lives), install and run (as root) abs.  Then the build stuff for firefox will live at /var/abs/extra/firefox

ewaller@odin:/var/abs/extra/firefox 1021 %ls
firefox.desktop  firefox.install  firefox-install-dir.patch  libvpx.patch  mozconfig  PKGBUILD  vendor.js

Looking at the PKGBUILD, that package does compile from source.  Copy the directory to a user directory, enter that directory, and you can build your own copy with makepkg.  You can then install the package with pacman -U
If you need to change something, change the files in your local copy.

This is not that tough, but it is most definitively not a project for a beginner.  The documentation you need is out there, you will need to do your research.

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