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#1 2013-05-05 05:22:35

Ba7a7chy
Member
Registered: 2013-05-04
Posts: 45

Yaourt best practice

Hi,

I was wondering:

1) Is there a way to upgrade only the user packages with yaourt instead of all system (as in upgrade only the ones installed by yaourt)
2) Is it wise to do a full system upgrade using yaourt ? (sounds dangerous)

Thanks in advance !

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#2 2013-05-05 05:55:03

WonderWoofy
Member
From: Los Gatos, CA
Registered: 2012-05-19
Posts: 8,414

Re: Yaourt best practice

1) My yaourt experience is probably less than a day, and I know this.  This is the kind of thing that man pages and help (ie. the "--help|-h" switches) are for.
2) It is not dangerous if you know what you are doing, like anything I guess. 

I would advise you to learn how to use the package building tools on their own before trying to take the easy way out.  AUR helpers are very convenient, but without proper understanding of what is happening, they can hinder more than they help sometimes.  I use an AUR helper (cower usually and pacaur when I'm really lazy), but I also know how to do it by hand, and how to do general debugging.

Do yourself a favor, and try to use the AUR without it for a while first.  Once you get the hang of it, you'll probably also see that there are far better options than yaourt.

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#3 2013-05-05 06:25:45

Ba7a7chy
Member
Registered: 2013-05-04
Posts: 45

Re: Yaourt best practice

Cool this sounds like a good advice.

so, in "try AUR without it" you mean using pacman to install from tar ? (I'm very very new to Arch)

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#4 2013-05-05 06:27:47

jasonwryan
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From: .nz
Registered: 2009-05-09
Posts: 30,424
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Re: Yaourt best practice


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#5 2013-05-05 06:31:15

bohoomil
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Registered: 2010-09-04
Posts: 2,376
Website

Re: Yaourt best practice

Ba7a7chy wrote:

2) Is it wise to do a full system upgrade using yaourt ? (sounds dangerous)

I don't think it is a good idea to use wrappers for pacman. pacman is extremely straightforward and it doesn't need further simplification.

The best practice is to separate official repos from the AUR and avoid applying the logic of unsupported to the stock system. Whatever AUR helper you are going to use, it will need to call pacman anyway(1). Therefore one that won't interfere with pacman doing its job is a good one. yaourt won't deal with this task in a satisfactory manner, IMO. (See the Forums' archives for examples.)

Edit:
(1) Unless its sole task is searching the AUR and downloading source packages.

Last edited by bohoomil (2013-05-05 06:33:49)


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#6 2013-05-05 06:32:40

Barthalion
Forum Fellow
From: Poland
Registered: 2010-02-26
Posts: 111

Re: Yaourt best practice

I guess that the best practice regarding yaourt is to not use it…

Last edited by Barthalion (2013-05-05 07:14:51)

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#7 2013-05-05 06:36:20

dodo3773
Member
Registered: 2011-03-17
Posts: 801

Re: Yaourt best practice

You can make an alias so that your repo packages are updated with pacman and then yaourt updates. That way it will only find aur packages because they are not in your repo. For example in my .zshrc I have:

alias update='sudo pacman -Syu && yaourt -Su --aur'

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#8 2013-05-05 06:41:21

Ba7a7chy
Member
Registered: 2013-05-04
Posts: 45

Re: Yaourt best practice

dodo3773 wrote:

You can make an alias so that your repo packages are updated with pacman and then yaourt updates. That way it will only find aur packages because they are not in your repo. For example in my .zshrc I have:

alias update='sudo pacman -Syu && yaourt -Su --aur'

This is a great idea (I think), this is exactly what I was looking for.

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#9 2013-05-06 15:47:17

t0m5k1
Member
From: overthere
Registered: 2012-02-10
Posts: 324

Re: Yaourt best practice

IMHO as a previous yoghurt user the best thing I ever did was to remove yoghurt & install cower & pacaur,
configure it to use ~/builds to store build files,
then add the following aliases:

# package management
alias pac="sudo pacman -S"      # default action	- install one or more packages
alias pacu="sudo pacman -Syu"   # '[u]pdate'		- upgrade all packages to their newest version
alias pacs="sudo pacman -Ss"    # '[s]earch'		- search for a package using one or more keywords
alias paci="sudo pacman -Si"    # '[i]nfo'		- show information about a package
alias pacr="sudo pacman -R"     # '[r]emove'		- uninstall one or more packages
alias pacp="sudo pacman -Rns"	# '[p]urge'		- purge a package + config files
alias pacl="sudo pacman -Sl"    # '[l]ist'		- list all packages of a repository
alias pacll="sudo pacman -Qqm"  # '[l]ist [l]ocal'	- list all packages which were locally installed (e.g. AUR packages)
alias paclo="sudo pacman -Qdt"  # '[l]ist [o]rphans'	- list all packages which are orphaned
alias paco="sudo pacman -Qo"    # '[o]wner'		- determine which package owns a given file
alias pacf="sudo pacman -Ql"    # '[f]iles'		- list all files installed by a given package
alias pacc="sudo pacman -Sc"    # '[c]lean cache'	- delete all not currently installed package files
alias pacm="makepkg -fci" 	# '[m]ake'		- make package from PKGBUILD file in current directory
alias pacin="sudo pacman -U"	#  [in]stall		-install local package
##aur
alias aur="pacaur -y"		# default action 	-install
alias aurs="pacaur -s"		# '[s]earch'		-search aur repo for package
alias aurupc="pacaur -k"	# '[c]heck' 		-check aur repo for updates
alias aurup="pacaur -u"		# '[u]pdate'		-update all aur packages
alias auri="pacaur -ii"		# '[i]nfo'		-give package info

there are plenty of other possible aliases but with cower & pacaur there is less chance for something to go wrong

Last edited by t0m5k1 (2013-05-06 15:47:42)


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#10 2013-05-06 15:58:29

Awebb
Member
Registered: 2010-05-06
Posts: 6,268

Re: Yaourt best practice

I also think you should either use the AUR manually or use a rather "low level" AUR helper like cower, until you know, what you are doing. There's nothing bad about being lazy, as long as you are aware of the freedom you're giving up and know, how to fix broken things.

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#11 2013-05-06 15:58:35

SolarBoyMatt
Member
Registered: 2012-01-07
Posts: 263

Re: Yaourt best practice

Honestly, just don't use any helper unless you truly have your heart set on it...

tar + 'makepkg -i' works great, and without any overhead that yaourt introduces. The only time it can be annoying is if you're installing an AUR package that depends on a bunch of other AUR packages...

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#12 2013-05-06 17:33:33

opt1mus
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From: UK
Registered: 2011-12-31
Posts: 212
Website

Re: Yaourt best practice

I would advise beginners not to go adding all those aliases, it encourages laziness in learning what all the individual switches do.

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#13 2013-05-06 17:37:09

HalosGhost
Forum Moderator
From: Twin Cities, MN
Registered: 2012-06-22
Posts: 2,089
Website

Re: Yaourt best practice

On a related note, there is no way, using any tool, to safely upgrade only certain packages and not others. Partial upgrades are not supported.

As for AUR Helpers, I am in complete agreement with bohoomil. I find `cower`/`abs` + `makepkg` are all that are needed for custom packages.

All the best,

-HG

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#14 2013-05-08 11:38:36

Ba7a7chy
Member
Registered: 2013-05-04
Posts: 45

Re: Yaourt best practice

Thank you so much people for taking the time and experience and suggesting.

After a few more days of using arch I believe the best thing for me is searching AUR using yaourt and manually downloading the PKG file and using makepkg to build it, then, using pacman -U to install the tar, I believe this is also giving me as a user more control over the process and let me take my time editing and viewing the PKG and *.install files.

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#15 2013-05-08 11:56:26

jakobcreutzfeldt
Member
Registered: 2011-05-12
Posts: 1,041

Re: Yaourt best practice

Ba7a7chy wrote:

Thank you so much people for taking the time and experience and suggesting.

After a few more days of using arch I believe the best thing for me is searching AUR using yaourt and manually downloading the PKG file and using makepkg to build it, then, using pacman -U to install the tar, I believe this is also giving me as a user more control over the process and let me take my time editing and viewing the PKG and *.install files.

Uninstall yaourt then. It's overkill for what you will be using. cower is perfect for that: "cower -s" to search the AUR and "cower -d" to download and extract the tarball; then you just do everything else the old-fashioned way.

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#16 2013-05-08 12:13:05

Ba7a7chy
Member
Registered: 2013-05-04
Posts: 45

Re: Yaourt best practice

Ok, I will.

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#17 2013-05-08 12:53:43

Awebb
Member
Registered: 2010-05-06
Posts: 6,268

Re: Yaourt best practice

It is funny, how a lot of us dislike the most convenient tool written for the AUR. To clear this up a little, yaourt is not really a bad program and it does not break everything all the time. There are only two problems with yaourt:

1. New users tend to install yaourt from a custom repository, so they never learn, how to use the AUR. Some packages require a little manual intervention that cannot be solved by yaourt automatically. Some setups have disk size problems with the default folders for makepkg and yaourt, so building sometimes fails. While this is not an actual problem with the software, those people then show up on the forums, posting the yaourt output, being absolutely helpless. The default answer is a batch of links to the wiki articles of the AUR and makepkg. This is why I said, that new users should avoid such tools, until they know, what is going on.

2. Yaourt has also a history of not keeping up with pacman updates. While this happens, say, only three times a year, relying on yaourt for all package maintenance kicks the user out of his usual routine three times a year. While this is surely not the end of the world, it is again a reason for a lot of users to create new threads here, instead of reading the comments on the AUR page of yaourt or maybe the forum thread found on the page behind the source link. Knowledge about the AUR would lead to looking at the AUR page, klick the link, see if there are news, bugs or comments.

On my first round with Arch, I also installed yaourt from the external repository, half the packages I wanted did not build, so I thought "wow, this AUR things sounds cool, but it is broken" and actually went on trying another distro.

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#18 2013-05-08 12:58:17

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,422
Website

Re: Yaourt best practice

I (mostly) agree, Awebb, but yaourt - in it's simplicity - becomes a tool for giving people fish rather than teaching them to fish.  And this is the problem.

Automating repetitive tasks is handy.  To possibly over-extend the metaphor, once someone knows how to fish, a good reel can come in quite handy: it's much better than dealing with all that fishing line by hand.  Give someone a reel, and they may learn to use it.  Many aur-helpers are good fishing reels; yaourt is a coupon for a McFish sandwich.

Last edited by Trilby (2013-05-08 12:59:51)


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#19 2013-05-08 13:34:07

Awebb
Member
Registered: 2010-05-06
Posts: 6,268

Re: Yaourt best practice

Trilby wrote:

I (mostly) agree, Awebb, but yaourt - in it's simplicity - becomes a tool for giving people fish rather than teaching them to fish.  And this is the problem.

This is, err, exactly what I am saying. Your "but" confuses me. Never say this to a woman, by the way.

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#20 2013-05-08 13:56:54

cjazz
Member
Registered: 2009-03-12
Posts: 47

Re: Yaourt best practice

Trilby wrote:

Give someone a reel, and they may learn to use it.

Nice.

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#21 2013-05-08 16:20:24

jgreen1tc
Member
From: St. Louis
Registered: 2011-05-16
Posts: 251

Re: Yaourt best practice

When I go to update my system, I run two separate commands

pacman -Syyu
yaourt -Sua

I only use yaourt to update the packages I have installed with yaourt. I know I could update my system with it since it will just call pacman, but I like to call pacman myself. No one tells pacman what to do but me.

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#22 2013-05-08 23:35:36

Awebb
Member
Registered: 2010-05-06
Posts: 6,268

Re: Yaourt best practice

Why do you Syyu instead of just Syu all the time? If you feel the need to do so, then I suspect you are using a bad mirror. While it may sound like splitting peanuts, you are wasting bandwidth.

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#23 2013-05-09 01:33:30

cfr
Member
From: Cymru
Registered: 2011-11-27
Posts: 7,130

Re: Yaourt best practice

I like pacmatic as a wrapper for pacman. (But it doesn't hide anything from me - just adds a little more information.)


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#24 2013-05-09 14:11:33

jgreen1tc
Member
From: St. Louis
Registered: 2011-05-16
Posts: 251

Re: Yaourt best practice

Awebb wrote:

Why do you Syyu instead of just Syu all the time? If you feel the need to do so, then I suspect you are using a bad mirror. While it may sound like splitting peanuts, you are wasting bandwidth.

I don't always update my system as often as I would like to. If I stay on top of it, I just -Syu. I also don't care about the small amount of bandwidth I waste.

Last edited by jgreen1tc (2013-05-09 14:12:01)

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#25 2013-05-09 14:19:56

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,422
Website

Re: Yaourt best practice

jgreen1tc wrote:

I also don't care about the small amount of bandwidth I waste.

I suspect the concern was more about the servers-end.  I don't know how much of an impact it'd really have, but syncing from the mirror needlessly does use *their* bandwidth too.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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