[Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

celebrimbor · 2014-10-09 21:28:00

Hi!

Is there a way to build AUR packages on a machine running OpenSUSE?

I want to build some AUR packages (firefox-kde-opensuse, Mathematica, and Matlab to be specific, which take too much time on my machine to build) on my school's machine which runs OpenSUSE.

Last edited by celebrimbor (2014-10-10 09:21:45)

theodore · 2014-10-09 21:40:46

Though I have not try it by myself I think that chroot environment is the way you will have to go.

celebrimbor · 2014-10-09 21:44:58

theodore wrote:

Though I have not try it by myself I think that chroot environment is the way you will have to go..

Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry I forgot to mention that I do not have administrator privileges to that machine.

Trilby · 2014-10-09 21:45:09

I'm only vaguely familiar with it, but OpenSUSE often touts the Open Build Service which is just for this purpose. Archlinux is listed as one of the available targets.

bstaletic · 2014-10-09 21:45:47

Chroot would probably be the easiest way to achieve this, but you can always try packaging pacman for another distribution. Though I'm not sure how that other distro would react to pacman especially if it has it's own package manager.

celebrimbor · 2014-10-09 22:23:03

Trilby wrote:

I'm only vaguely familiar with it, but OpenSUSE often touts the Open Build Service which is just for this purpose. Archlinux is listed as one of the available targets.

Thank you for your reply. There is pre-built firefox-kde-opensuse on that site. But no Mathematica or Matlab.

bstaletic wrote:

Chroot would probably be the easiest way to achieve this, but you can always try packaging pacman for another distribution. Though I'm not sure how that other distro would react to pacman especially if it has it's own package manager.

The latter is an interesting point. I will try installing pacman and makepkg on my FreeBSD machine.
As for the former, I do not have admin privileges to that OpenSUSE machine.

\hbar · 2014-10-09 22:29:57

Trilby's solution is probably the easiest, but couldn't you open the PKGBUILD, run the build and package instructions by hand (by replacing the PKGBUILD variables by their correct values), copy the resulting pkg directory to your arch machine, write a stripped down PKGBUILD that merely packages the pkg directory, and install that?

Trilby · 2014-10-09 23:32:06

celebrimbor wrote:

Thank you for your reply. There is pre-built firefox-kde-opensuse on that site. But no Mathematica or Matlab.

As I understand it there are two (well I guess three) ways to use the OBS. 1) just check whether someone else already built a package - this is the only one you've checked on, the package you want isn't there. 2) submit a new package to the OBS - it builds on their machines and you (and anyone else who wants it) can download the built package from the OBS server. 3) OBS can be installed locally on an OpenSUSE machine and you can then use it to build packages for a variety of target distros.

So 1 is out. 2 seems like a very good option. 3 may also have potential, though it may depend on being able to install something on the OpenSUSE computers which it isn't clear if you could do.

thiagowfx · 2014-10-10 01:46:17

I tried OBS before. I would recommend it, but there is a problem: it doesn't have packages from [community]. So, if you rely on it to build a package that has many dependencies on [community], you'll also have to build them yourself. I concluded in the past that the reason for this was licensing issues.

Edit: clarification. Build them yourself == provide PKGBUILDs from packages in [community] to OBS.

Last edited by thiagowfx (2014-10-10 01:47:07)

thiagowfx · 2014-10-10 02:22:10

I've just compiled pacman on Ubuntu, and it works perfectly. Of course, you cannot use make install because you do not have root privileges, but at least it should (in principle) build in your machine too. ((Web)Log of my installation. Nothing fancy.)

celebrimbor · 2014-10-10 09:20:34

\hbar wrote:

Trilby's solution is probably the easiest, but couldn't you open the PKGBUILD, run the build and package instructions by hand (by replacing the PKGBUILD variables by their correct values), copy the resulting pkg directory to your arch machine, write a stripped down PKGBUILD that merely packages the pkg directory, and install that?

Yes, I can. That's what I did today but it is very tedious so was searching for an easy way.

Trilby wrote:

As I understand it there are two (well I guess three) ways to use the OBS. 1) just check whether someone else already built a package - this is the only one you've checked on, the package you want isn't there. 2) submit a new package to the OBS - it builds on their machines and you (and anyone else who wants it) can download the built package from the OBS server. 3) OBS can be installed locally on an OpenSUSE machine and you can then use it to build packages for a variety of target distros.
So 1 is out. 2 seems like a very good option. 3 may also have potential, though it may depend on being able to install something on the OpenSUSE computers which it isn't clear if you could do.

The second does sound like a pretty good option! I will try doing this as following thiagowfx's excellent suggestion wiki. I will also ask the admin of my school if he can install OBS on OpenSUSE machines.

thiagowfx wrote:

I've just compiled pacman on Ubuntu, and it works perfectly. Of course, you cannot use make install because you do not have root privileges, but at least it should (in principle) build in your machine too. ((Web)Log of my installation. Nothing fancy.)

Haha! That's fantastic! Thanks for that blog post.

theodore · 2014-10-10 09:27:39

celebrimbor wrote:

theodore wrote:
Though I have not try it by myself I think that chroot environment is the way you will have to go..
Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry I forgot to mention that I do not have administrator privileges to that machine.

you can create a chroot environment by booting with a live cd. Also there is the option of setting up an arch linux system in a virtualbox and then compile your packages in there.

As you can see options exist (other proposals above as well), the matter is just to find which one fits you best.

celebrimbor · 2014-10-10 09:50:02

theodore wrote:

celebrimbor wrote:
theodore wrote:
Though I have not try it by myself I think that chroot environment is the way you will have to go..
Thanks for your reply. I'm sorry I forgot to mention that I do not have administrator privileges to that machine.
you can create a chroot environment by booting with a live cd. Also there is the option of setting up an arch linux system in a virtualbox and then compile your packages in there.
As you can see options exist (other proposals above as well), the matter is just to find which one fits you best.

Brilliant! Installing Arch in a Virtualbox is a great idea. Thanks again!

Arch Linux

#1 2014-10-09 21:28:00

[Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#2 2014-10-09 21:40:46

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#3 2014-10-09 21:44:58

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#4 2014-10-09 21:45:09

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#5 2014-10-09 21:45:47

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#6 2014-10-09 22:23:03

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#7 2014-10-09 22:29:57

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#8 2014-10-09 23:32:06

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#9 2014-10-10 01:46:17

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#10 2014-10-10 02:22:10

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#11 2014-10-10 09:20:34

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#12 2014-10-10 09:27:39

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

#13 2014-10-10 09:50:02

Re: [Solved] Building AUR packages on a machine that doesn't run Arch

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