Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 09:16:10

Hello, I'm new to Arch, but since my problem is pretty much specific to yaourt/AUR I thought this would be the better place to ask around.
I tried to install a whole bunch of packages from the AUR repository, but almost all that I tried failed to install, mainly dependency errors far into or after the compiling process, one example - the game Go-Ollie wouldn't install because the Image Magick library wasn't found. However, Image Magick is installed, but there's no trace of it's library not in the AUR, nor the community repository. Same with A7XPG - failed to install because something was missing that I can't find anywhere. I am starting to get VERY frustrated. It looks like there are a ton of broken packages floating around in the AUR and there are a ton of programs missing that I'm used to having on the other distors (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc..) What am I missing here? Am I doing something wrong or is AUR/Yaourt really as messed up as it seems? A little help?

PS: Please be easy on me, I'm still a grass green noob after all

jasonwryan · 2014-04-08 09:25:25

You are better off not using yaourt: learn how makepkg works and build packages manually. It will deepen your understanding of how AUR works and will mean if/when you do decide to use an AUR helper, it is an informed choice.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-04-08 09:28:54

Don't use yaourt dood --- installing AUR packages takes four commands after you download the tarball:

tar xzf foo.tar.gz
cd foo
makepkg -s
sudo pacman -U foo.pkg.tar.xz

...not very complicated at all
EDIT: my typing is too slow...

Last edited by Head_on_a_Stick (2014-04-08 09:29:51)

Awebb · 2014-04-08 09:51:25

This was exactly my first impression of Arch! yaourt failed to build absolutely everything from the AUR, so I thought the AUR was bollocks. Yaourt is sometimes advertised as somewhat complete, somewhat semi-official, because the repo you can install it from sounds so official. It is not. Learn how to download and build packages first. Most of the time yaourt fails to install more than 1/3 of the AUR packages, the yaourt in the repos is outdated, your mirror for the base packages is outdated or manual intervention would have been required before executing makepkg.

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 15:25:21

Thanks! I kinda had a feeling something was off with Yaourt. The downside of compiling stuff myself is, aside of having next to no patience, is that I have download and compile *every* single dependency. Is there a way to automatically satisfy those dependencies during build without Yaourt, or am I s.o.l? I know I'm apt spoiled lol. Any recommendations for a working Yaourt alternative?

Last edited by bloodyhell (2014-04-08 15:40:47)

nullified · 2014-04-08 15:32:51

bloodyhell wrote:

Thanks! I kinda had a feeling something was off with Yaourt. The downside of compiling stuff myself is that I have download and compile *every* single dependency. Is there a way to automatically satisfy those dependencies during build without Yaourt, or am I s.o.l? I know I'm apt spoiled lol. Any recommendations for a working Yaourt alternative?

I suggest

man makepkg

Notice that the -s option will

Install missing dependencies using pacman.

If the dependencies are in the AUR, then you will have to download them and build them. But, that's far from having to download *every* dependency.

Trilby · 2014-04-08 15:34:14

Two things in addition to the comments above (with which I fully agree):

1) There *are* a lot of broken things in the AUR. Many AUR packages have been orphaned/abandonded and in many cases there are a dozen versions of any given package, only one or two of which may work. So you need to check the comments and votes to get an idea of whether a package is likely to build. Periodically plans surface to do a massive cleanup or purge of the AUR - but so far we work with what we have.

2) While I wholeheartedly agree that yaourt is more trouble than it is worth, the one thing that it does (attempt to) do is resolve other aur dependencies. Makepkg with the "-s" flag, however, will grab any dependencies that are in the main repos just fine. So the only limitation is having to install any other aur packages that an aur package depends on. In my experience aur packages that depend on yet other aur packages are rare, and when they exist they are often from the same maintainer: so if one works, they likely both will (or if one fails, likely both will).

So, in short, makepkg makes you learn just a little bit more of the process; but this learning pays off in a *much* higher (but not perfect) success rate for installing things from the AUR.

Once you get the basics, there are other AUR helpers that are much simpler in just automating the truely repetative parts of the process without hiding so much of the workings the way yaourt does. Cower is one such helper which I currently use - there are several others.

EDIT: also if yaourt is really failing with every package, then you might want to ensure that you have the base-devel group installed. This group is an implicit dependency of any AUR package.

Last edited by Trilby (2014-04-08 15:37:20)

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 16:46:23

Yeah, like I said - anything I tried to install using Yaourt has failed, with exception of some Windowmaker dockapps (well, one of them still failed (wmtimer)). I'm gonna give Cower a shot. I'm still holding out hope that some helper app (like Cower) is gonna help me compile and install AUR packages with little to no intervention (did I mention that I'm an apt/Synaptics spoiled brat?)
Got an off-topic question though - It came to my attention that the Arch install distro had a relatively easy albeit non-graphical installer. Why did the developers ditch this? I think I'll never understand the appeal of things being more complicated and/or inconvenient than they have to be. Don't get me wrong, I think Arch is cool sofar, and once I get hang of installing AUR stuff, it would make it amazing beyond comprehension, but why make things more complicated and inconvenient for the noob?

Last edited by bloodyhell (2014-04-08 16:49:55)

Awebb · 2014-04-08 16:49:51

I use cower to handle all AUR stuff. It can search for packages and download tarballs for the package and all the dependencies. I usually work in two windows. After downloading the package and all AUR deps, I go to the other window and run makepkg on all the deps. Nobody says you should never use yaourt, but you should make sure you are familiar with the building process. Most Arch users who want to build complex packages have their own little scripts, that use something like cower to fetch the packages and then more or less automatically build the dependency chain. Writing such a helper script will give you great insights into the build process without forcing you to deal with something you might not care about (processing html, json or whatever api from the command line).

The main issue people have with yaourt is, that it tries to replace pacman entirely. Since yaourt is very complex, it reduces the transparency you usually have when building manually. That said, there are other AUR helpers, that are completely able to build entire AUR dep chains with minimal user interaction, that do not have a complicated and fragile code base as yaourt has. As a rule of thumb: If you are unable to understand the code of an AUR helper, you probably do not know enough about the build process to be sure, that the helper does not mess anything up.

Inxsible · 2014-04-08 16:51:04

bloodyhell wrote:

Got an off-topic question though - It came to my attention that the Arch install distro had a relatively easy albeit non-graphical installer. Why did the developers ditch this? I think I'll never understand the appeal of things being more complicated and/or inconvenient than they have to be. Don't get me wrong, I think Arch is cool sofar, and once I get hang of installing AUR stuff, it would make it amazing beyond comprehension, but why make things more complicated and inconvenient for the noob?

Lack of interest in maintaining the install scripts. The dev who was maintaining it offered it to anyone who would like to continue. No one stepped up to the plate.

Either way, I don't think the install is too challenging now either. Infact, many on the boards prefer it this way rather than some do-it-all script. But then again, on the other hand, we hardly require the installation since Arch is already installed on our machines.

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 16:53:48

Amazing how quick the answers come! I'd have to wait several days elsewhere, if not a week (cough, linuxquestions.org, cough) You guys are awesome!

Last edited by bloodyhell (2014-04-08 16:54:14)

HalosGhost · 2014-04-08 16:57:00

Inxsible wrote:

Either way, I don't think the install is too challenging now either. Infact, many on the boards prefer it this way rather than some do-it-all script. But then again, on the other hand, we hardly require the installation since Arch is already installed on our machines.

I have to say that I completely agree. I remember the AIF, and it did make things simple in that it directed installation fairly well, but the current install method is more arch-way imho and is really quite simple in most cases (and the times when it isn't simple are corner cases where the AIF would have completely failed).

All the best,

-HG

Inxsible · 2014-04-08 17:02:22

Another option is to use aurget. I believe it is the most simplest AUR helper, that manages dependencies (across official repos and AUR). I tried to switch to cower, but I still use aurget for most of my AUR installation.

Awebb · 2014-04-08 17:03:44

bloodyhell wrote:

Got an off-topic question though - It came to my attention that the Arch install distro had a relatively easy albeit non-graphical installer. Why did the developers ditch this? I think I'll never understand the appeal of things being more complicated and/or inconvenient than they have to be.

The AIF was not ditched for any but the most simple reason: It was buggy as hell and the maintainer did not have the time to keep it going. It tried to do everything, to cover every scenario, but was ultimately a victim to its own complexity. The new installer is not more complicated, it is actually more simple. All you have to do is follow the readme step by step and make your own decisions in the process. I find pacstrap and arch-chroot to be more universal than the old AIF. Before the switch, creating an install script was a painful process of understanding the AIF and learning its syntax. Now we have these straight forward tools, so building your own install script is very easy. It also gives you a more in-depth knowledge of what's going on on your system.

The new installer also seems to be more friendly towards wifi users. Then you will never ever again have to deal with the situation, that the AIF somehow kicks you out of the process and then complains about an ongoing installation, without telling you where the lockfile is or how to fix this manually. In a menu, I always press down and enter to get to the next item. The AIF did half of this, it moved the cursor down to the next item automatically. In more than one occasion, I killed the installer with this and sometimes even had to redo the entire process (incl. downloading the packages), because bringing the installer back to a specific state was a painful act. I find the current solution more user friendly.

If you feel like Arch could need a menu driven installer, you are invited to create one, but all attempts to do this so far either drowned as quick as they had emerged or were rejected by the other users, because they were either too specific, too buggy or generally failed to add anything to the process, that the current install scripts have to offer.

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 17:12:53

Thanks, Inexible - gonna try aurget first thing. If all works well, this could become my apt-get replacement. If all fails then makepkg it is.

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 17:16:30

Awebb - I was thinking about putting all the install steps into a script, but I'm sure there are plenty of those floating around.

Inxsible · 2014-04-08 17:20:11

yes there is. But like Awebb mentioned, there are some assumptions that you have to make when building "automated" scripts. There was a script that 1 guy built where he created 4 partitions for /, /home, swap and /boot, by default and assigned some sizes based on his HDD.

Of course everyone jumped on him about that, since not everyone has the same amount of diskspace. That's why I believe, you cannot automate everything. You as a user needs to make certain decisions based on your system.

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 17:40:24

That's where input prompts regarding the hard drive selection and partitions should have been considered, or running cfdisk or something from within the script, then return to the script after done. I'm sure that a revised version of this script would be very popular by now.

Last edited by bloodyhell (2014-04-08 17:43:39)

Inxsible · 2014-04-08 17:42:11

bloodyhell wrote:

That's where input prompts regarding the hard drive selection should have been considered, or running cfdisk or something from within the script, then return to the script after done.

Are you offering your services to be the maintainer for the AIF ?

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 17:46:29

Dude, I'm a NOOB but I can try as soon as I can wrap my brain around this scripting witchery

PS: I'm not completely new to scripting - after all, I configured a sleek and snazzy vtwm desktop

Last edited by bloodyhell (2014-04-08 17:48:53)

jasonwryan · 2014-04-08 18:33:54

bloodyhell wrote:

That's where input prompts regarding the hard drive selection and partitions should have been considered, or running cfdisk or something from within the script, then return to the script after done. I'm sure that a revised version of this script would be very popular by now.

The current install process is popular with Archers. General popularity is not something that Arch aspires to.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2014-04-08 20:15:31

The current arch install process is absolutely wonderful --- using the pacstrap -c option I can install to external drives/memory sticks without using the internet & I find it far quicker than the automated graphical installer used by other distros.
I managed to install Arch to a usb stck in 15 minutes last night

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 21:56:17

Ok, I got around to try out aurget and tried to install a7xpg.. nada.. stops at following error:
ld: cannot find -lgphobos
ld: cannot find -lgcc
Makefile:21: recipe for target 'a7xpg' failed
make: *** [a7xpg] Error 1
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in build().
Aborting...
warning: package a7xpg failed to build, skipping

can't find lgphobos and lgcc in AUR nor main repo and I have no effin' clue where to get those from.. errrrfff...

Inxsible · 2014-04-08 21:58:01

well that right there is not the fault of the AUR helper now is it !

that's just bad packaging by the maintainer who hasn't made sure that all dependencies are made available in the repos or the AUR although I am not sure that the lgphobos or lgcc is the package name. I know there is gcc, but no idea about gphobos. They might just be commands in some other package. Looks like the package you are trying to install just needs libgl and sdl_mixer.

Edit : if that program depends on 32 bit binaries, make sure you have enabled the multilib repo in pacman.conf (I am assuming that you are using 64 bit architecture)

Last edited by Inxsible (2014-04-08 22:10:11)

bloodyhell · 2014-04-08 22:07:47

Never claimed it's the helper's fault, but I kinda hoped it would make a difference... well.. NOT. I'm using the 64bit arch and yes, I didn't take into consideration that this could be a 32 bit package. Well, I'm gonna see how the Warsow install turns out and depending on that I may enable the multilib repo... heck, I'm gonna do that right now.

Arch Linux

#1 2014-04-08 09:16:10

Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#2 2014-04-08 09:25:25

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#3 2014-04-08 09:28:54

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#4 2014-04-08 09:51:25

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#5 2014-04-08 15:25:21

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#6 2014-04-08 15:32:51

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#7 2014-04-08 15:34:14

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#8 2014-04-08 16:46:23

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#9 2014-04-08 16:49:51

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#10 2014-04-08 16:51:04

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#11 2014-04-08 16:53:48

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#12 2014-04-08 16:57:00

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#13 2014-04-08 17:02:22

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#14 2014-04-08 17:03:44

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#15 2014-04-08 17:12:53

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#16 2014-04-08 17:16:30

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#17 2014-04-08 17:20:11

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#18 2014-04-08 17:40:24

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#19 2014-04-08 17:42:11

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#20 2014-04-08 17:46:29

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#21 2014-04-08 18:33:54

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#22 2014-04-08 20:15:31

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#23 2014-04-08 21:56:17

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#24 2014-04-08 21:58:01

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

#25 2014-04-08 22:07:47

Re: Yaourt fails to install *any* AUR package

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