System Maintenance: the Source/Binary combo

ANOKNUSA · 2010-10-25 18:49:08

Howdy-ha, folks. I'm sorry if this is a bit too verbose, but I have a thought that involves a few different issues, and was hoping to get a broad range of feedback. I just installed Arch four days ago, looking for something that offered both more control over the core system and better KDE integration than Ubuntu, with a community just as strong as the latter's. I also like the idea of a rolling distribution that offers the ability to stay as up-to-date as possible. I've had both Gentoo and Arch in mind for some time, and decided to start with Arch since I don't have an internet connection at home yet, and the installation is faster (read: easier?) than Gentoo's. I tried out Sabayon a while back, but found that the recompile/world-update time was absurd, since it's basically Gentoo with a whole lotta extra crap added that the user needs to shave away. On top of this, Sabayon offers two package managers: classic Portage and Entropy, a binary manager. However, these two don't play well together. This doesn't seem to be the case with Arch, as the ABS tree is matched to the official binary repos. But since I've come across the notion of making Arch a combo source/binary setup, I'm questioning whether I should bother with Gentoo at all. I'm currently using an AMD Athlon X2 dual-core, with 4 gigs of ram, so speed optimization isn't really my concern; rather, I'm looking to maintain a system that offers control over optional dependencies (to avoid the extra clutter; that's part of the Arch Way, right?) and retain the bleeding edge, without the need to recompile the entire system. So here are my questions:

1) Is it feasible/advisable to recompile only my explicitly installed, local packages while leaving the core untouched? In this way, I'm hoping to be able to edit the PKBUILDS to my taste solely for the extra stuff I install, as well as use the AUR for outside packages and projects running from git/svn/google code, as these updates appear in the AUR more often that the official repos. To reiterate, I'd only be doing this for the packages I use regularly and like to follow the development of: docky, amarok, various projects on kde-look.org/kde-apps.org, etc. Are there any known issues with mixing ABS/AUR and the official repos? ABS builds binaries, so I don't see why there would be...

2) I've been playing around with clyde/yaourt/bauerbill/pacbuilder since installing. These are all just wrappers/front-ends for pacman, correct? Mixing and matching while experimenting won't cause any real problems, will it?

3) On a note related to that above, what would you folks recommend I use for the setup I'm looking at? It seems both yaourt and clyde integrate well with customizepkg (allowing me to set "global" make options and then leave them), while bauerbill doesn't; bauerbill also doesn't offer the nice color output of the former two, for reasons Xyne explains clearly on his site. As for pacbuilder: given that I don't have an online connection at home, is it possible to use pacbuilder/clyde/bauerbill to "fetch" packages and then run a recompile/upgrade at home, a la Portage?

I know this is a lot--and I have been doing my research-but as I said, a whole swath of feedback from a good cross-section of the Arch community seemed the best way to go about this. Any help from you folks, including the hard-working SOB's who worked on all these projects would be greatly appreciated. So far I really, REALLY like what I'm seeing, so thanks to everyone for all the work--and, in advance, for the help!

Last edited by ANOKNUSA (2010-12-05 05:14:46)

karol · 2010-10-25 19:47:15

Arch isn't about getting as slim as possible, e.g. the default mplayer has many more dependencies than necessary but many people do use them and many Archers aren't obsessed with keeping their system below 1GB of HD space ;P

You can "mix" AUR, the repos and your modified PKGBUILDs from ABS. AUR helpers are pacman / makepkg wrappers and are safe to use too.

tomk · 2010-10-25 20:20:20

1. Yes
2. No
3. pacman + makepkg

quigybo · 2010-10-28 18:46:23

1. Yay for ABS + makepkg, just customise the packages you want to. git/svn versions of most major packages are available on the AUR (keep in mind that these 'update' every time you run makepkg, you don't need to wait for updates to their PKGBUILD on the AUR).

2. Mix and match till your hearts content. Note that makepkg always does the building, irrespective of where (ABS, AUR) or how (clyde, bauerbill etc.) you get the PKGBUILD. pacman (strictly speaking libalpm) always does the installing.

3. pacman + makepkg. Depending on your taste, you can also use a helper that downloads but doesn't build AUR PKGBUILDs, such as cower or slurpy. You can download sources with the --nobuild makepkg option, however that won't help you much for git/svn packages.

ANOKNUSA · 2010-12-05 05:13:36

Well, it's been more than a month since someone posted to this thread, and I think the tinkering I've done has led me to a conclusion. Thanks to the folks who helped get me started; I'll close this off now.

tomk · 2010-12-05 10:16:29

Please note: threads remain open here unless closed by a moderator.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-10-25 18:49:08

System Maintenance: the Source/Binary combo

#2 2010-10-25 19:47:15

Re: System Maintenance: the Source/Binary combo

#3 2010-10-25 20:20:20

Re: System Maintenance: the Source/Binary combo

#4 2010-10-28 18:46:23

Re: System Maintenance: the Source/Binary combo

#5 2010-12-05 05:13:36

Re: System Maintenance: the Source/Binary combo

#6 2010-12-05 10:16:29

Re: System Maintenance: the Source/Binary combo

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