Question about AUR and repositories

hokum_rus · 2010-06-04 13:13:32

Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported. I'm looking at my desktop box and really can't deny this statement. I have a lot of software from AUR, in other binary distros this software could be obtained in binary form from repos.
Why this happens? Very limited resources, few TU's, strict official repos policy or what?

brisbin33 · 2010-06-04 13:35:49

hokum_rus wrote:

Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported. I'm looking at my desktop box and really can't deny this statement. I have a lot of software from AUR, in other binary distros this software could be obtained in binary form from repos.

(emphasis mine)

echo "scale=3; $(pacman -Qqm | wc -l)/$(pacman -Qq | grep -v "$(pacman -Qqm)" | wc -l) * 100" | bc # percentage of packages not from the repos
8.600

i don't consider 8.6% a lot. especially when i consider the fact i have many -git, -svn, and various patched version of repo packages. not the mention all the arch-user-written software available in the AUR.

not sure if this is flame-bate or what but i disagree.

Allan · 2010-06-04 14:19:45

1.7% here...

hokum_rus · 2010-06-04 14:36:30

brisbin33 wrote:

hokum_rus wrote:
Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported. I'm looking at my desktop box and really can't deny this statement. I have a lot of software from AUR, in other binary distros this software could be obtained in binary form from repos.
(emphasis mine)
echo "scale=3; $(pacman -Qqm | wc -l)/$(pacman -Qq | grep -v "$(pacman -Qqm)" | wc -l) * 100" | bc # percentage of packages not from the repos
8.600
i don't consider 8.6% a lot. especially when i consider the fact i have many -git, -svn, and various patched version of repo packages. not the mention all the arch-user-written software available in the AUR.
not sure if this is flame-bate or what but i disagree.

Sure, mathematically it is not much.
I'm counting it other way - by a number of everyday software I'm using.
Lets go form other side, why there is a number of packages in AUR, that have a very high amount of votes and it is still not in extra?

Daenyth · 2010-06-04 14:43:26

1) Maintain popular software in AUR
2) Apply to become a TU
3) ???
4) PROFIT

Most people skip step #2

toad · 2010-06-04 14:45:25

5.1%

Allan · 2010-06-04 14:46:40

Yes... we need a fair number more TUs in my opinion. Maybe even several times more.

See http://www.archlinux.org/developers/ and http://www.archlinux.org/trustedusers/ for the numbers of Developers and TUs we have. It is a fairly small number compared to the number of packages we have.

Runiq · 2010-06-04 14:49:30

What about this junior developer mentor scheme thingy, isn't it there precisely for that purpose (to get more people to apply as package monkeys, I mean)? How is it going along?

stqn · 2010-06-04 14:52:55

Your command line doesn't really give the percentage of installed packages not from the repos. That would be:

echo "scale=3; $(pacman -Qqm | wc -l)/$(pacman -Qq | wc -l) * 100" | bc

But this returns an even lower value anyway... (1% here... and I'm surprised to find "xfce4-icon-theme" in the list... I certainly didn't install this from AUR )

ijanos · 2010-06-04 14:56:31

stqn wrote:

and I'm surprised to find "xfce4-icon-theme" in the list... I certainly didn't install this from AUR )

That's because it has been removed from the repos, now its a local package.

Misfit138 · 2010-06-04 15:00:05

hokum_rus wrote:

Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported....

What kind of person would actually identify themselves as an 'Arch opponent?
I wouldn't seriously entertain a person coming from such an immature and unbalanced point of view. Tell them to use something else if they don't like Arch, or the AUR.
In fact, you won't have to tell them, since their minds are already made up.
I have yet to see a user switch his distro of choice as a direct result of recommendations and sound arguments in favor of a given alternative anyway.

brisbin33 · 2010-06-04 15:06:40

stqn wrote:

Your command line doesn't really give the percentage of installed packages not from the repos. That would be:
echo "scale=3; $(pacman -Qqm | wc -l)/$(pacman -Qq | wc -l) * 100" | bc
But this returns an even lower value anyway... (1% here... and I'm surprised to find "xfce4-icon-theme" in the list... I certainly didn't install this from AUR )

you're right, i overcomplicated it. my command give's a ratio of sorts i guess?

new output:

//blue/0/~/ echo "scale=3; $(pacman -Qqm | wc -l)/$(pacman -Qq | wc -l) * 100" | bc
7.800

ijanos · 2010-06-04 15:07:45

Oh and to be ontopic

hokum_rus wrote:

Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported.

This is just not true. There are plenty of packages and unsupported does not contain any binaries at all

tomk · 2010-06-04 15:12:59

Misfit138 wrote:

hokum_rus wrote:
Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported....
What kind of person would actually identify themselves as an 'Arch opponent'?

Maybe they have a club - they meet in strict secrecy every full moon, to discuss everything that sucks about Arch.

The meetings are very short.

anonymous_user · 2010-06-04 15:24:56

hokum_rus wrote:

Why this happens? Very limited resources, few TU's, strict official repos policy or what?

More than just TUs, it takes an interested TU. Even if a they have spare time, maybe they're not interested in maintaining package X.

Last edited by anonymous_user (2010-06-04 15:25:28)

VoodooSteve · 2010-06-04 17:59:57

hokum_rus wrote:

Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported. I'm looking at my desktop box and really can't deny this statement. I have a lot of software from AUR, in other binary distros this software could be obtained in binary form from repos.
Why this happens? Very limited resources, few TU's, strict official repos policy or what?

So what? I don't really care whether the package is from AUR or a binary repo so long as it gets the job done. You can even use yaourt to keep them up to date automatically.

Sure, mathematically it is not much.
I'm counting it other way - by a number of everyday software I'm using.
Lets go form other side, why there is a number of packages in AUR, that have a very high amount of votes and it is still not in extra?

AUR packages with high enough votes actually go into the community repo, not extra.

wonder · 2010-06-04 18:07:47

hokum_rus wrote:

Lets go form other side, why there is a number of packages in AUR, that have a very high amount of votes and it is still not in extra?

mostly licensing and second, lack of interest from TU. can you give examples ?

Inxsible · 2010-06-04 18:18:06

The unsupported tag that is associated with the AUR is probably the core issue with the "Arch opponents"

But you have to understand that unsupported does not mean that no one cares about it, its just that the Arch devs do not want to because those packages are not necessary to run a linux system. Remember that when you first install Arch, all you get is a very very very basic, BUT working linux system. So the Arch devs should only care about the packages that get you a working system. What you do after that is your own business.

I don't think there is a single Arch user who just uses packages that were installed during the installation and nothing else.

hokum_rus · 2010-06-04 23:41:12

wonder wrote:

hokum_rus wrote:
Lets go form other side, why there is a number of packages in AUR, that have a very high amount of votes and it is still not in extra?
mostly licensing and second, lack of interest from TU. can you give examples ?

In my case:
logjam, vimperator, qutim, pinta, doublecmd, freedcpp, deadbeef, mplayer with vdpau support and some others. Indeed, I have much more packages from aur, but mostly it is related to lib32- and bin32- ones.

Another big question is a PKI and package signing, it is usual for other distros, but not Arch. So we have only a few third-party repos, such arch-games or kdemod, and a possible security problem with package fabrication in such repos of mirrors.

hokum_rus · 2010-06-04 23:49:13

tomk wrote:

Misfit138 wrote:
hokum_rus wrote:
Many Arch opponents say we have a very limited number of binary packages and a lot of it in unsupported....
What kind of person would actually identify themselves as an 'Arch opponent'?
Maybe they have a club - they meet in strict secrecy every full moon, to discuss everything that sucks about Arch.

The meetings are very short.

Well, in my land we have a special "Fight Club" for such things - linux.org.ru
But I'm being Arch user for a 1,5 year also feeling a concern about topic.

zodmaner · 2010-06-05 06:18:45

hokum_rus wrote:

In my case:
logjam, vimperator, qutim, pinta, doublecmd, freedcpp, deadbeef, mplayer with vdpau support and some others. Indeed, I have much more packages from aur, but mostly it is related to lib32- and bin32- ones.

Why on earth would we need Vimperator in official repositories? It's a Firefox plugin. You can easily install it without having to use pacman.

Also, MPlayer package in Extra have VDPAU support enabled for a long time, so I see no reason why you would need an alternative MPlayer package just for that.

My response to this "Arch opponents" is this: Arch is a sort of hybrid between binary and source distribution. While we have a lot of binary packages, you should still be prepared to build some stuffs yourself. If you find this too much of a hassle, then apparently Arch is not for you (just like Gentoo is not suitable for people who don't have time to build (almost) everything themselves, no offense to Gentoo) and you should use another distribution that suits you need better (there are a dozen of binary-only distribution out there anyway).

Last edited by zodmaner (2010-06-05 06:32:30)

Ogion · 2010-06-05 06:40:23

Actually i see having an official binary repo *plus* 'unsupported' AUR as a big plus. PKGBUILDs are easy and are transparently 'the same' for the binary repo and AUR, which makes it consistent.
I was using Debian before arch, and while it sure is nice to have a big binary repo (as Debian has), the dpkg system is not as transparent and easy as arch's way and that means that a) the huge repo has to be maintained and thus is old and b) you can't just easily make a new package yourself and install it with the package manager.

Ogion

hokum_rus · 2010-06-05 07:29:42

zodmaner wrote:

Why on earth would we need Vimperator in official repositories? It's a Firefox plugin. You can easily install it without having to use pacman.
Also, MPlayer package in Extra have VDPAU support enabled for a long time, so I see no reason why you would need an alternative MPlayer package just for that.
My response to this "Arch opponents" is this: Arch is a sort of hybrid between binary and source distribution. While we have a lot of binary packages, you should still be prepared to build some stuffs yourself. If you find this too much of a hassle, then apparently Arch is not for you (just like Gentoo is not suitable for people who don't have time to build (almost) everything themselves, no offense to Gentoo) and you should use another distribution that suits you need better (there are a dozen of binary-only distribution out there anyway).

Everything is fine until Arch becomes a "distro for everyone" - then security and compiling issues could be painfull for users.

Last edited by hokum_rus (2010-06-05 07:30:21)

tomk · 2010-06-05 07:31:25

Arch will never become a distro for everyone.

kazuo · 2010-06-05 07:58:10

tomk wrote:

Arch will never become a distro for everyone.

This is one of most important features of Arch for me. (Seconded by the intimidating of ubuntu users)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-06-04 13:13:32

Question about AUR and repositories

#2 2010-06-04 13:35:49

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#3 2010-06-04 14:19:45

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#4 2010-06-04 14:36:30

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#5 2010-06-04 14:43:26

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#6 2010-06-04 14:45:25

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#7 2010-06-04 14:46:40

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#8 2010-06-04 14:49:30

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#9 2010-06-04 14:52:55

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#10 2010-06-04 14:56:31

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#11 2010-06-04 15:00:05

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#12 2010-06-04 15:06:40

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#13 2010-06-04 15:07:45

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#14 2010-06-04 15:12:59

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#15 2010-06-04 15:24:56

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#16 2010-06-04 17:59:57

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#17 2010-06-04 18:07:47

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#18 2010-06-04 18:18:06

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#19 2010-06-04 23:41:12

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#20 2010-06-04 23:49:13

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#21 2010-06-05 06:18:45

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#22 2010-06-05 06:40:23

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#23 2010-06-05 07:29:42

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#24 2010-06-05 07:31:25

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

#25 2010-06-05 07:58:10

Re: Question about AUR and repositories

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