 Hey everybody, welcome to the Linuxcast. I'm your host Matthew Everett, and I'm running so low once again this week I'm pretty sure that's gonna be the norm for a while so This week We're gonna be talking about the AUR and why I'm such a fanboy first Sorry about that moving the mic I'm going to be moving the contact info to the top of the show if you want to get in contact with us You can do so At the Linuxcast on Twitter. I'm at MTWB on Twitter. You can also email us now I've got a brand new fancy email address The Linuxcast at gmail.com. It's just so much easier to use Gmail Maybe someday I'll use proton or something You can also call us on Facebook at facebook.com slash the Linuxcasts and you can subscribe to our feeds Everywhere, but it might be easier just to go to the Linuxcast.org which points you to our anchor page so Let's jump right into our topic for tonight The AUR the arch user repository sometimes called arch community user repository is Let's first ask the question. What is the AUR? So if you don't use arch you're probably wondering why do all the arch users Continue to talk about the AUR like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Well, there's a good reason for that We're gonna be talking about that tonight today. Whatever Time period you're in I'm recording this at Almost one o'clock in the morning. So So what is the AUR? The AUR is community sponsored collection of programs. The keyword here is community as This is a community put together is as this is a collection put together by a community and not by arch Linux itself It's means that it's Not supported by arch itself. So we'll talk about that a little bit more later Let me talk about the downsides So basically it's very simple just like with Ubuntu Ubuntu has its own Ubuntu repository that's supported and Maintained by canonical and then it has a tons of little PPAs or whatever That are supported by the community. They're all separate and in different places and they're not up-to-date and all this You know crappy stuff that has to do with PPAs The arch does it do the AUR does it differently where the community puts their packages in this one single Repository well, it's not supported by arch Linux. It's supported by the community and that means you go to this one place for your software so one of the things So people ask me a lot. Why do you love the AUR? So why is the Why is they you are different than other repositories and why is it better? We really don't already talk about this is really simple I'm not even sure how we can make it a whole episode of this because It just seems quite obvious that they are superior to everything else All the software you need is in one place So if you need Audacity it's there. I mean it audacity is in the regular arch Repository as well, but it's you know in the AUR as well Could I say as well another time? I think I probably could So Like I said, they're all the all the software that you can imagine is there if there's a software package that you need It's probably in the AUR. So even things like One of the problems we have with elementary OS is that they had they foster programs that are specifically designed for the their own version of Linux and most often these things can only be found in their app store or through the ability to build and compile the programs yourself and That can be in a whole another episode, but Usually the exception to those things is in the AUR because people will go through and build those programs or put the binaries in the AUR and then allow you to build them easily through a UR helper like yay or something and It also allows you to do like a lot of people like the elementary OS Desktop environment, I think it's called pantheon that's in the AUR It's pretty hard to do that if you're on Ubuntu because you'd have to go through and compile it yourself It's even possible But because the AUR has this single place where people can put those binaries and it's easy for users to build them It allows Those complex programs that aren't necessarily always available for other Linux distributions to be in the AUR so it the true strength of the Arches repository is its size and the community because it's community maintained and It's fairly easy to package a program for the AUR it allows the breadth of Programs to be huge money. I'm gonna huge mungus, you know, because that's a weird very large and It allows users to go to that one place and it's very convenient now We talked a lot last week about snaps and this is basically what snaps and flatpack is trying to do create one place One repository for all your software needs and make it easy to browse and find new software new apps and things like that The AUR isn't necessarily the same thing and I'm gonna I say this it while it is similar in that It's a single place where there's a whole bunch of applications that you can find and Their package in a certain way and they can be downloaded in a certain way and they're maintained in a certain way like snaps The you are is not necessarily the place They are it's not as good at discoverability as Snaps are because snaps has the snap store flatpack has flat hub They are has PMAC. It is kind of The only thing that's really Comparable now. I mean there is a website for the AUR that has all their packages listed, but it's not It's just a list of packages, right? You can search through it But it's not like there's not featured featured categories and all that stuff now Like I said, there is PAMAC, which is the GUI version of Pac-Man That comes packaged with quite a few ArchBase distros or you can you obviously you can download it but It's not the same experience that you have on like snaps or you know the snap store flat hub where Those are curated Stores that allow The maintainers to feature different applications put things in categories and and Sort them in certain ways put popularity things and reviews and all that stuff That's just not kind of really what they you are for Because it's just not the way it was built As I mean, that's when I suppose we could talk about that in the downside section as well is that there's not that Ability to curate curate and find the best most popular applications you kind of have to find them yourself But we're not to the downside yet, so because it's put together by the community and support it's supported by the entire Community meaning that there is no fragmentation of control like there is with our other package management systems. So Snaps versus flat packs flat packs versus snaps You know apt versus Pac-Man You know or even within the Ubuntu You know Environment Ecosystem was the word I was looking for there even amongst that ecosystem yet. You have competing package management Systems you have you know you have snaps you have apt. You know you have to understand how you know like Um Debian packages work so you can install things through that you can install Packages in multiple different ways and you can do that on arch as well But usually just when you need a package you use an a you are helper and download it from the a you are download it from the Archer repositories is that one single way of installing your applications? other than having four or five different ways of doing it and Several of those having security security flaws that are not going to ever be fixed PPAs we're looking at you Um all software that comes from the a you are is updated through the a or a you are so This isn't a huge benefit because it happens on other Distures as well, but because it's you downloaded it all from one place all the updates and Change logs and stuff like that can be found through the a you are Whereas on other ones Updates through the system, but the system has to kind of plug into wherever it came from So you're like with Ubuntu you add repositories for your PPAs and while it keeps your software up to date You have to have this brought long list of Repositories or you know PPAs that you know you've subscribed to so that you can get your updates Whereas with artists just they arch repository and the a you are That that's it And while that's not a huge advantage Because most of the mostly on Ubuntu. It's you know seamless It can be it's just It's the idea of simplicity, right so another We just talked about simplicity which is weird because It gets more complex on how you install so let's talk about this for a little while There is a While they're just one a you are there are many ways to interact with the a you are You can use you can Build the packages yourself after downloading look downloading them You can use one of the many different a you are helpers like yay pack a you are Yowart is is no longer maintained, but people still use it. There's I mean there's dozens and dozens of different H. You are helpers and that's both Good and bad. It's good because you have choices based on how you want to interact with the a you are I personally use yay. I think most people should use yay, but it's not the simplest way of Dealing with a or I think that's pack a you are But Because there's these different choices, you know, you can choose what you want now the downside is obviously that choice Added choices means more complexity and harder to choose what you want to do so for new users of the a you are you may not know which A you are helper to use or I mean chances are your sister probably comes with yay installed or Maybe you want to switch or it's just adds a level complexity that the new users are going to have to you know Get into and learn and things like that and it's one of the things that can kind of turn people away from using Different things on Linux. I mean it's one of the things that turns people away from using Linux, right? So People don't necessarily want to engage their brains If you will and learn new things and adding a whole bunch of different a you are just can add that complexity that Is not is both good and bad so So Let's jump into the downsides The number one thing you'll hear when people talk about the downsides of the a you are is security concerns and That's because anybody Good or bad can upload to the a you are and there's no central figure. There's no community community committee or Overhead or oversight of the a you are So basically when you download something you're doing it at your own risk it's very much like Windows and and PPAs really in that sense because when you download something via PPA and Ubuntu you're downloading it from Joe Schmo on the internet. You have no idea if that's actually legitimate software if it's you're downloading, you know a Mile malware of some kind or ransomware or whatever So it's one of those things that your people talk about how oh if you download Something from the a you are you're taking your computer into your the life of your computer into your own hands and like oh Mostly that is fun. I think because you have that same kind of Risk with every package management systems outside of snap and flat pack because snap and flat pack are maintained by a central figure You know central group of you know Maintainers and they review them for malware and things like that where but every other package management system has the same risks that the a You are does only it does those package management systems don't have the advantages. So PPAs for example, I know I I pick on PPAs a lot because PPAs are tort terrible. I'm gonna talk about Why I hate PPAs in a little while Actually, I'll just talk about it now You know, you you need a piece of software. You're using Ubuntu the latest LTS and you know Ubuntu is awesome You know, I'm an arch user, but For the most part Ubuntu is fantastic software and it's it's a good distribution. You can use it. It's very stable But prior to the snap store PPAs were the predominant way of getting path, you know packages and applications and You know unless you wanted to deal with dev files and things like that and even though, you know dev file a lot of times Dev files came from PPAs so My experiences were I need an application. So I have to go to this certain website and Subscribe to the PPA update the System to recognize that the PPA is not part of the Subscription and then install the package that I want hoping that not only was the package up to date But that the package was actually there Half the time that the package, you know was either broken or wasn't there even though it was advertised to be there It was just a really bad experience PPAs remind me a lot of how windows used to do software on windows prior to the windows sir Which nobody still uses the windows sir So they really are still in this situation if you need a piece of software you go to the vendor you download a didey xe file or a wizard And it installs the program for you and you do that for every single piece of software that you need That's annoying as fuck really really is I I Don't want to have to go to several different places to get all my software and that's just really annoyed me when I first started using Ubuntu it was before snaps were here or More I think it was more before snaps became any good at all And I had to go to these separate different things had like you know three dozen PPAs and I had to you know I had to do that every single time I installed Ubuntu and it was just annoying as fuck And I didn't want to do it anymore, and that's why I fell in love with the a you are because All the programs I need right there, you know through either using Pac-Man or Pamac or yay or whatever and It was fantastic. It was it's just something that I've never wanted to go away from So who would so this is a question I ask Who would benefit the most from using day you are and I don't think it's hyperbole to say that everyone would benefit if we switched to the ar we talked a little bit last week about how Fragmentation is a big problem in the Linux, you know community and how you know well choice is good It can also cause massive confusion amongst new users, and why I don't think I Don't I I don't think or suggest that everyone's every distro should switch to the a you are If I was in charge that would happen, but it's probably a good thing that I'm not in charge, so But theoretically Everyone would benefit if at all the districts use the a you are the the it could replace snaps flatpacks PPAs and everything and Moreover if it was the predominant way of installing applications on Linux as a whole the entire Linux community would support it and contribute to it and It would be even better than it is now It's one of the reasons why the a you are so good is because it has a massive community of developers developing for it and It allows, you know that ease of use of having one central place of finding your software Another group that would benefit from using a you are the most is probably developers When you're a developer Writing your your application is really only one You know it may be the biggest hurdle, but it's not it's not the only hurdle that you have to jump through Especially on Linux like if you're on Windows you just create an exe file and it works on every Windows machine or you know every Windows 10 machine or whatever the only Dependency it may have is what what version of Windows right on Linux because there's so many different distributions you have to package your package and For apps you have to package it for snap you have to package it for flat pack You have to package it for the a you are you have to package it for you know fedora and open Suza and all these different distributions and No You know it's not it's not a good experience as a developer you want to be able to package it just once and Allow it to be used on every distribution that runs Linux and well, that's the ideal behind snaps It can it's also the ideal behind the a you are you just package it for the a you are and It could be available to everyone and You wouldn't have and because it's community Developed and community sponsored you don't have the control and iron fist of canonical behind it That you know people worry about with snaps so um, I Didn't skip a couple things with the downsize. I'm gonna go back to that actually Sometimes reading is really hard. I have these notes. I don't always follow the notes and that's not a good thing for My organizational skills, which by the way organizational skills non-existent Really non-existent. Hey, so don't going back to the downsize just a little bit So it can be difficult for new users of Linux to actually understand what the a or does so Unlike different other repositories the a or is Unpackaged binaries that the users actually build themselves So that's what a you are helpers actually do is they go through and take these package builds of things that you know list the dependencies and and Files for the program and then they go through and basically run make install and compile the program But it's all done through automated automated scripts controlled by the a or helper like yeah, or whatever and Well for the most part that stuff happens in the background there are certain steps that you see happen, especially if you use this through the terminal that New users wouldn't necessarily Understand or be able to comprehend or get through they'd have to look it up and actually learn it So that's one More downside for the a or and the other one is similar in that there are so many a you are helpers That you have to choose which one you want to use and then you say you do choose say like yay it's it's not the It's not pseudo apt install and then just hit yes Sometimes you have to say it asks you do you want to read the package build? Do you want to install? you know this version of this version of a dependency do you want to remove Make make dependencies after installation certain things like that and those are those Little steps that you have to use when using yay add extra complexity that are Not necessarily new user friendly, so that's a downside So I know I kind of skipped back and forth between sections there that's because like I said reading is hard so Okay, just a couple more sections here why so if you've listened to the podcast for any number of you know episodes you'll know that I'm huge I mean I don't know you could listen to this podcast this episode here and discover that I'm a really big fan of the aor I'm a fanboy and I will I Live and die by the aor and I think it's gonna be something that always is the case I have a really hard time going back to different distros like a boon to or open Suze I mean I really like those open Suze. I like the team behind open Suze I think they're very creative people and I think of all the people all the distros Open Suze does the best job of marketing because they do these really cool music videos that Nobody really knows about but they're really awesome but Leaving arch is really hard because the aor is there. I mean I don't want once I get a system set up I don't want download a lot of software. Maybe one program, you know a month or two or whatever But it's nice notice there and it's I don't have to go hunting and searching for You know what website or vendor or whatever supplying the software that I'm looking for So it's really hard for me to leave Arch because of the aor Really, that's the only I mean people ask want. Hey, why do you use arch-based distros? And really the only reason I use the arch-based distros is because the aor It's the only reason otherwise Arch is basically just a Linux system. It's basically a boon to You know, it's but harder to install, you know, and so so it um If they you are an arch, you know, or they you are didn't exist There'd be no reason for me to use arch I just use Ubuntu and you snaps or something But thank God the aor exists because the world without it would be so much worse It just I have this written down here going back to and finding software and Ubuntu feels like going back to the 1990s And while that situation is is changing because of snaps There's a lot of things that aren't you know put in snaps and there's a lot of reasons why you wouldn't want to use snaps You know becoming reliant on a single package management system that's controlled by Ubuntu itself is a little scary to me. I Envision if you listen to my other podcast with my friends Ricky and Vince we Do predictions every year and one of the predictions for the last two years is that a canonical is gonna get bought by Microsoft No, I don't know if this is actually gonna ever happen But Microsoft has become very interested in open source lately And it wouldn't surprise me at some point if they throw 50 billion dollars at canonical And say hey, we really like you know We now own Ubuntu and we own the snap store. Why happens then I mean people freaked the fuck out when Microsoft About getting I Mean it'd be a nightmare for everybody who hates Microsoft I don't think it'd be the end of Ubuntu or end of the snaps But it's not necessarily something that I'd want to participate in now. I know like I said, that's a What-if scenario, but it worries me to be relying on that one Package management system that might get gobbled up by a big tech giant Arch is never going to get Purchased by a big tech giant. It's just not because it doesn't have a presence in the cloud or whatever. It has no money making capabilities It's just you know, it's it's for the community made by the community and it's good that way So it doesn't have for me. It doesn't have those worries. And so I mean Just me being paranoid. I know but I you know, it can't really help that so in conclusion I'm gonna try last couple times with these big topics. I've emitted a conclusion section and I'm gonna try to put those in these episodes from now on The a war is great. I I mean, there's is just it so good. It's so nice to be able to just Open up a turnable a turn a turn on all turn and all Turn and all good Lord. I Told you I was recording this at 1 3 in the morning Words are hard my friends terminal My vocabulary is terminal Anyways My my word vomit has made me lose my train of thought It's so nice to be able to go to a terminal hard word and just you know yay dash at capital s you know, whatever and You know, it installs. It's so nice not to have to go hunting and searching for something on You know the snapster or whatever or you know, God forbid PPAs. So They you are is great. Now. I brought up the scenario of who will but would benefit from using the a you are and The whole crazy scenario of every distro using the you are that's never gonna happen this first of all Snaps and flat packs do exist and snaps and flat packs definitely do have advantages over the you are specifically the stores that they're curated in and Those stores are something that they are doesn't have and never is going to have because it's Not ran by a central committee or a group of people. It's ran by an entire community so I Put that out there, but it's never gonna happen and I think that's probably a good thing So as much as I love the you are and I suggest everyone use it I suggest everyone get on an arched-based distro and use the you are you'll never ever go back probably But it's good that there are other Ways of doing things in Linux. It's one of the things that makes Linux great You know, you don't like the way, you know The a you are works go use a boom to you don't like the way the boots it works go to open so there are arch or whatever, you know, just That's what makes Linux so good is that there's choice. I mean obviously choice. We talked about choice having at it making Added complexity to the ecosystem and making it harder for users to choose and things like that but for the most part choice is good and I think that that is something that Would be taken away if everyone used the a you are so I think everyone should use a you are but Use what works for you the best and at least try you know what I have a challenge for you Go if you've only ever used a bunch of say you're a new user, which is mostly the people Who I expect to listen to this podcast is this is for noobs but If you've never used an arch based or strip go install one Arch isn't scary to install Because there are alternatives. They're based off arch So install manjaro and star install arco or whatever artix any of these and give it a give it a try try the a you are see what I'm talking about and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised and at least then you can see why I'm such a fanboy Because you maybe you can see the advantages to it. So that is it for this episode. I made it a full 30 minutes, which is pretty impressive for You know not having anything to say other than they are is great. They are is great. They are is great You know, I got my pom poms and if I didn't have bad knees I'd be jumping up and saying the a you are is great. I have a dance and everything but They're just gonna have to put up with us. This is my ode to the a you are so Just in case you missed it at the beginning contact info you can follow the Linux cast at the Linux cast on Twitter. You can follow me. I'm at MTWB on Twitter You can follow you can email us at the Linux cast at gmail.com You can follow us on Facebook at facebook.com slash the Linux cast we were available on every podcast Catcher that you can imagine But they're all pretty much listed at the Linux cast or which points to our anchor FM page Now Like I've said in the last few episodes I am looking for a co-host because this is so much easier if I have someone to talk to I think I've gotten a Little better at doing these things solo. I don't say um a lot But I still say quite a I'm quite a pit and it's so much easier if I'm not sitting here talking to myself and staring at a daisity like a loser So if you're interested in becoming a co-host for the next cast even if it's just occasionally there is no money involved Obviously, but you know a volunteer would be nice Come talk with me come have a chat That'd be nice. Anyways, if you want to do that just a PM me on Twitter or give me an email or whatever it doesn't matter and Our Topic for next week is gonna be a good one. We're gonna talk about Windows Yes, you know Windows Microsoft Windows that Legacy ridden Beast of operating system that dominates the world But and specifically we're gonna be talking about the Windows socket layer for Linux I think is it called Windows something or the other is WSL. I don't even know where it is I'm gonna do some research before then obviously know what the hell it stands for before then I Just want to know if it's good or bad for Linux because I've never actually used that might even I have a Windows install it. I never use I might install it. I know what call it is. It was we'll see you next week