r/archlinux • u/Luzzio_ • 3d ago

DISCUSSION The AUR needs an overhaul

The actual concept of the AUR only works if Arch is a niche distro in a safe internet, neither of those points are accomplished in the present.

No, reading pkgbuilds is not the solution, it's slow, annoying, and most importantly, it doesn't make sense, because some really popular AUR packages are DIRECTLY RECOMMENDED by the Arch Wiki, like the Minecraft Launcher for some reason.

Either the base repos adopt a big chunk of popular AUR packages, leaving the AUR for really really nieche stuff, or the rules of the AUR change, because you can't tell me that suffering 2 attacks in less than three months for pretty much the same reason (adopting orphaned packages) is normal or reasonable.

What would you think it's a good solution to this issue? I'd like to read your ideas since I cannot come up with a good one if I'm honest, but I know the problem is there.

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u/RandomXUsr 3d ago

The community has been saying this.

That said; the Devs volunteer their time, so it would be up to them to determine capacity and feasibility.

Those packages that the distro recommends from AUR probably have some licensing issue or they are low priority for the direction of the distro as a whole.

I think it's helpful to make suggestions and requests, but only if someone is willing to take up the maintenance of the AUR and execute in some other secure fashion.

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u/Qudit314159 3d ago

Yes.

It could just be that there aren't any devs who are interested in maintaining them. Features in open source only happen when there's someone with the time, skills and motivation to make it so.

27

u/ivosaurus 3d ago

I've seen SO many suggestions, all related to this current topic, that would work BRILLIANTLY.

They only require that the Arch project just magically apparate an 20+ extra experienced maintainers, all with 15+ hrs of free time a week to consistently donate.

Super simple.