pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

eschwartz · 2018-01-28 08:54:26

I would assume the reason is because advertising aurutils could be seen as tooting his own horn.

Although, it very much deserves it as aurutils is really very very good at its job...

aphirst · 2018-01-28 09:32:35

Ah yes, aurutils. That's one of the ones I tried and really dislike precisely because I have to fanny about with half a dozen different commands in a workflow totally unrelated to what I would ever associate with Arch package updates. I'm sure this is what some want, but I just want one tool which via pacman-like switches lets me update repos AND the AUR. Which is why I'm dreading the updates which make pacaur incompatible.

eschwartz · 2018-01-28 10:03:43

No, you really really don't. There fact that aurutils comes with a number of extra commands does not obligate you to use it -- aursync is all you need to "just" update AUR packages. It will even upgrade them on your system afterwards, just like `makepkg -i`.

Yes, you do have to run `pacman -Syu && aursync -u` instead of `pacaur -Syu`, so that is two commands... I feel like a shell alias would work pretty well here, unless you really will not settle for anything other than yaourtpacaur.

Spyhawk · 2018-01-28 10:47:44

@Alad: For someone that doesn't want to advertize its own product in every helpers post, you're doing a pretty bad job about it. I don't mind the advert, but either do or don't: I do find the "let's talk about it without talking about it" kinda ridiculous. Aurutils has its own qualities, but all helpers suck in their own way, aurutils is no exception (ie, I very like some aspects of it, while I find it subpart in some others).

@aphirst: To answer your question, if you'd like to move to another helper with a more "traditional" experience, that is bug free right now and quite solid all around, there is only one alternative and that is bauerbill (written in Python). Compared to pacaur, it has a more sequential process, but its included trust management system can alleviate part of it. I think the only other thing pacaur does that bauerbill doesn't is making sure versioned AUR dependencies exist on the AUR, but pacaur is the only one to do that anyway (more reliable in some very edgy cases, at a cost of its dependency solving speed).

This said, two projects are worth considering for the near or long term future:

* Trizen (Perl), that is actually growing in popularity and doomed to be the next most popular helper. Dozens bugs reports have been launched at it the past few weeks, and while it has still some somewhat serious issues (split package support, subpart --devel management, ..), its development has gone back to full speed with many releases and bugs fixing. It is more a sequential process, though PKGBUILD reviewing is now all done before building. No "pacaur-style" minimal user input planned, because that's a bitch to implement without a complete overhaul of the code.
* Yay (Go) is the youngster out there, also with a more active develpment since pacaur has been deprecated. It's at the moment subpart and unreliable in too many ways to list all its flaws here (split packages, solver reliability, ..), but some recent active contributors want to turn it into a pacaur experience clone of sort. There is some discussion about a potential future design, based on local repo (like aurutils main concept) and a minimal user input, and I must say that is close to what I'd have considered for a complete pacaur rewrite. The code is yet to be written though, so don't expect to have anything ready in the near future.

The rest of the 'complete' helpers in the wiki list is either barely worth mentionning, or not worth anything at all. Forget about them.

Last edited by Spyhawk (2018-01-28 11:20:47)

mxfm · 2018-01-28 10:57:03

Eschwartz wrote:

No, this is working as the author intended.
Also pacaur is no longer supported, so nothing will be fixed or changed anyway...

Sorry for interrupting, but I have missed this. Which AUR helpers are up to date and not abandoned? AUR helpers wiki page lists dozen of helpers but as it seems some of them are abandoned and this is not mentioned nowhere.

P.S. There is some activity at the wiki talk page indicating this information will be added in the feature.

Last edited by mxfm (2018-01-28 11:02:27)

Spyhawk · 2018-01-28 11:26:29

Among the complete helpers, aurutils, bauerbill and trizen are active. Unless you care for a minimalistic helper (like cower/auracle), forget about the rest of them.

Alad · 2018-01-28 11:36:41

@Alad: For someone that doesn't want to advertize its own product in every helpers post, you're doing a pretty bad job about it. I don't mind the advert, but either do or don't: I do find the "let's talk about it without talking about it" kinda ridiculous. Aurutils has its own qualities, but all helpers suck in their own way, aurutils is no exception (ie, I very like some aspects of it, while I find it subpart in some others).

You're getting it wrong. I want people to focus on the technical aspects, not some "brand" - which aurutils seems to have become lately after the demise of your helper.

That's why I go to pretty much every helper bug tracker, and try to convince them of the qualities of local repos and other aurutils concepts. My hope is that I can convince them to avoid making the mistakes pacaur made (with varying success - trizen is already using pacman -Ud as a "quick fix" to pacman -U limitations).

aphirst wrote:

Ah yes, aurutils. (...)

Ah yes, someone who makes disparaging remarks about a project while having absolutely no idea how it works. I'd be more than happy if you don't use any of my software.

Last edited by Alad (2018-01-28 11:44:51)

Trilby · 2018-01-28 12:19:35

Alad wrote:

Ah yes, someone who makes disparaging remarks about a project while having absolutely no idea how it works. I'd be more than happy if you don't use any of my software.

FWIW, I don't really think this was fair. I can see why you don't like where the last few posts have gone, Alad, but it would be worth separating Aphirist's comments from Spyhawk's. I didn't see anything disparaging in Aphirist's comment; just that when given a suggestion of a tool he outlined why he didn't feel it met his goals. His goals are not your goals (even if you are self-admittedly proselytizing your goals as if they should be everyone's).

A: Here, try my hamburger, it's the best hamburger ever!
B: Thanks, I'm sure it's a wonderful hamburger, but really I was looking for pizza.
A: No! You don't really want pizza. What you really want is a hamburger, please don't disparage hamburgers.
B: Um. No. Get lost.

---

Aphirist, I'm not familiar with some of the above mentioned options (e.g. Trizen and the go-based one). But I think there are few that meet your criteria as it seems many aur-helper developers valued keeping a clear dviision between AUR handling and pacman system upgrades. Further, with the relatively recent changes to the AUR, I think some helper developers realized that there was a diminishing degree of added-value in using a helper: the basic process without a helper has been greatly simplified. This isn't to say helpers aren't still ... helpful - but I do think the pressure for really good helpers has been diminished. The only other tool I know that really integrates them the way you seem to want is yaourt - though I'd strongly advise against that one. While it may have the wallpaper you like, the walls are rotted through: it superficially meets your criteria, but will cause problems in the long run.

Last edited by Trilby (2018-01-28 13:14:46)

aphirst · 2018-01-28 12:52:21

aursync is all you need to "just" update AUR packages. It will even upgrade them on your system afterwards, just like `makepkg -i`

I guess I got swamped by the fact that all the tasks were separated, and never worked this out. I'll certainly confess to not having put too much effort in (mainly because I want something like I'm already used to).

This escalated pretty quickly to pointless personal comments, so (especially given Trilby's post) I won't bother to add to that. But I will try out bauerbill as per Spyhawk's suggestion.

Alad · 2018-01-28 13:09:14

Only one thing I'd like to add.

Trilby wrote:

His goals are not your goals (even if you are self-admittedly proselytizing your goals as if they should be everyone's).

The only goals here I'm proselytizing here are implementation details. They have no impact whatsoever on the stated wishes - whether that's installing or updating packages with one command, or making a distinction between AUR and repo packages - those form the actual interface.

One part why these implementation details are important is that they affect what AUR maintainers have to deal with on a daily basis. (I can't install this package with my helper! You suck!)

(For the record, interface was what bothered me about aphirst's comment - the vehement persistence that aurutils requires you to run 12 scripts in sequence to get basic tasks done, without even looking at how the project works, as he now admits)

Last edited by Alad (2018-01-28 13:17:27)

aphirst · 2018-01-28 13:20:02

I've reinstalled aurutils and realise my issue. You can't just install "aurutils" and get going, and the documentation is opaque. It doesn't seem possible for it to just set up the local repo automatically based on the AUR packages which are installed, and all the "top level documentation" links straight to the in-depth docs on each component, which assumes you already know the workflow. This has been mentioned before, however.

I've tried again, and now have a [custom] repo set up, but the documentation section on "migration" doesn't actually mention how to set up this new repo for all the packages on my system which I built from the AUR, short of (presumably) manually adding them. (Such a section would be very useful for people migrating!) I'll try to work it out from here.

EDIT: running `aursync $(pacman -Qqm)` seems to have done the trick.

Last edited by aphirst (2018-01-28 13:29:09)

Alad · 2018-01-28 13:24:38

Well, I think I've drifted this topic far enough off-topic. Thanks for your comment, but it would be better suited for the aurutils thread.

Spyhawk · 2018-01-28 13:27:03

@Alad> My apologies if my post above lead to some unecessary escalation. I guess my point was that using the term "Some helpers" while aurutils is actually the only one fitting that category of helper is completely redundant. While reading my post above again, I do reckon it poorly conveys this thought. We're however in agreement here, as you know that I've expressed a long time ago that the 'next' helper might be based on aurutils.

As of the "mistakes" pacaur did, this is a direct consequence of the evolution of the AUR the last few years. Pacaur started as a simple, stupid cower wrapper without much any heavy lifting. While the AUR expanded in capabilities (complete RPC, split packages, ..) many small hacks that should have been temporary only were included while waiting for cower to catch up. It never really did, and most of these eventually became permanent. There is a great deal of technological debt here, as I never sit down and started from a blank sheet again.

Alad · 2018-01-28 13:35:58

I guess my point was that using the term "Some helpers" while aurutils is actually the only one fitting that category of helper is completely redundant

Well, repoctl also supports local repositories. I'd definitely recommend anyone looking at a "minimalistic" helper to check it out. Maybe yay will consider it as you pointed out.

Whoever is writing the 'next' helper I wish all the best, since a popular interface is certainly not something I'd like to deal with for the same reasons pacaur is now unmaintained.

There is a great deal of technological debt here, as I never sit down and started from a blank sheet again.

I think any new AUR helper writers should invest their time in improving aurweb, rather than fight it with clients. I tried doing so by filing scores of bug reports, but it seems actual patches are expected in this case.

Spyhawk · 2018-01-28 13:41:21

Alad wrote:

I think any new AUR helper writers should invest their time in improving aurweb, rather than fight it with clients. I tried doing so by filing scores of bug reports, but it seems actual patches are expected in this case.

Yes. The official stance is that the AUR officially supports automated search, but not automated build. In this context, I'm honestly not sure that all the filled request will eventually be fixed upstream, even if someone provides an actual patch.

WorMzy · 2018-01-28 14:13:23

Since this aur helper is no longer being developed, and all the new posts are just discussing alternatives, I think it's time to close this topic.

Spyhawk, if you object to this, and feel the topic should remain open for a bit longer, please file a report.

Closing.

EDIT: pacaur has a new maintainer (https://github.com/E5ten/pacaur), so reopening.

Last edited by WorMzy (2019-07-26 11:38:16)

Arch Linux

#701 2018-01-28 08:54:26

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#702 2018-01-28 09:32:35

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#703 2018-01-28 10:03:43

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#704 2018-01-28 10:47:44

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#705 2018-01-28 10:57:03

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#706 2018-01-28 11:26:29

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#707 2018-01-28 11:36:41

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#708 2018-01-28 12:19:35

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#709 2018-01-28 12:52:21

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#710 2018-01-28 13:09:14

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#711 2018-01-28 13:20:02

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#712 2018-01-28 13:24:38

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#713 2018-01-28 13:27:03

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#714 2018-01-28 13:35:58

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#715 2018-01-28 13:41:21

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

#716 2018-01-28 14:13:23

Re: pacaur - an AUR helper that minimizes user interaction

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