[SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

sshaikh · 2019-07-03 17:23:50

In particular:

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Telegram

offers two graphical clients to install:

Graphical clients
The official app:
telegram-desktop, built by Arch Linux
telegram-desktop-binAUR, built by upstream

They both appear to be similar versions and last updated around the same time. So:

1) What does "built by upstream" mean here? Built by Telegram themselves?
2) Why have both available? Historical reasons? Why would I choose one over the other?

Last edited by sshaikh (2019-07-06 16:37:03)

graysky · 2019-07-03 17:29:30

It would appear the one in [community] has built from source: https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/comm … am-desktop
The one in the AUR is not, it is statically linked to libs: https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/ … esktop-bin

In general, I do not like statically linked stuff nor do I like packages that provide a repackaged binary but that's just me.

sshaikh · 2019-07-03 17:34:33

So can I take that as "the reasons why there may be a similar package in the AUR can vary"?

In this specific case why would one want a statically linked version of an app?

graysky · 2019-07-03 17:53:34

I don't know why you would. Also, these aren't apps, they're programs. Fucking branding these days...

Xyne · 2019-07-03 19:30:23

I'm not sure how much you already know about Pacman, the binary repos and the AUR so here's a quick summary. All Arch packages are built from PKGBUILDs, which are simple Bash scripts (think of them as recipes). When you build a package with makepkg, it usually downloads the source code and compiles it to produce the package that you install with pacman. Depending on the package, this can take a lot of time and require a lot of memory and disk space, sometimes more than the user has.

The official binary repos (core, extra, community, etc.) provide built packages: you don't need to worry about the building part. However, the AUR only provides PKGBUILDs so the building is up to you. That means that some users may not have the resources needed to build some packages, or they may require several hours or more to build them. It is therefore common to find "bin" variants of PKGBUILDs in the AUR (e.g. foo and foo-bin). The bin variant will download pre-compiled code and package it up in a way that pacman can install it so that the user can skip the compilation. The pre-compiled code can come from different places. Sometimes the developers provide binaries on their website along with the source code, which seems to be the case for Telegram.

Usually the normal and bin variants co-exists so that users can compile the code themselves. If you're asking yourself why anyone would want to compile something, there are several possible reasons: optimization, customization, security (unknown 3rd-party binaries BAD), coping mechanisms for recovering Gentoo addicts, etc.

Anyway, Telegram seems to have been recently moved to the community repo so Arch now provides a binary package which it didn't before (the PKGBUILD is still available, but in a different place). There is no longer any reason to keep the bin variant and it will be removed.

sshaikh · 2019-07-06 16:17:26

My original question was specifically why there was a bin package both in the Arch repo and the AUR, but it appears this was a simple timing issue and not really typical.

Thank you for the comprehensive reply.

WorMzy · 2019-07-06 16:25:40

Please remember to mark your thread as solved by editing the first post and amending the topic title.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post

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#1 2019-07-03 17:23:50

[SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

#2 2019-07-03 17:29:30

Re: [SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

#3 2019-07-03 17:34:33

Re: [SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

#4 2019-07-03 17:53:34

Re: [SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

#5 2019-07-03 19:30:23

Re: [SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

#6 2019-07-06 16:17:26

Re: [SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

#7 2019-07-06 16:25:40

Re: [SOLVED] Built by Arch Linux vs upstream

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