Arch User Repository is referred to as AUR. It is a user-submitted package library for Arch Linux that is community-driven. Although Arch Linux does not officially handle these tools, the Pacman package manager makes it simple to build and manage them. AUR packages are frequently more recent than those in the official Arch Linux repository since they are generally built from source code. But AUR packages are not included in the official Arch Linux repositories and may not be as well-tested or stable as the official packages. This guide teaches you how an AUR can be utilized in Arch Linux.

Why Use AUR?

The use of the AUR in Arch Linux is possible for several causes, including the following:

Accessibility to Additional Apps: The AUR gives the users an access to a variety of applications that are not included in the official Arch Linux repository. A software that isn’t regarded as “free” or “open source” or the newer variants of an existing software may fall under this category.

Community-Maintained Packages: The Arch Linux community is responsible to maintain the AUR. Since the people who develop and maintain these packages are enthusiastic about the technology that they are packaging, the results may be higher-quality and more recent packages.

Flexibility: Installing the packages from the AUR lets the users modify their setup of Arch Linux by adding the components that may not be available from the official repository. Users with particular requirements or interests may find this beneficial.

Easy to Use: The utilization of the Pacman package manager and utilities like Yaourt, which simplifies the process of obtaining, creating, and installing the AUR packages, make it reasonably simple to install the packages from the AUR.

Update and Upgrade the Arch Linux

Before taking a look at the use of the AUR utility in Arch Linux, make sure that all the prerequisites are already installed. It includes the update of the already installed tools along with the installation of the new tools. Therefore, we use the Pacman utility to update and upgrade our Arch Linux followed by the –Syu option. The “-Syu” option tells Pacman to synchronize the package databases and carry out a full system upgrade. The output shows that the package databases (core, extra, community, and multilib) are already up-to-date and that there are no available updates. The system then states that there is nothing to do which means that the system is already up-to-date and there are no fresh updates to be installed.

Install the Base-Devel Package

It’s time to install the base-devel package on our Arch Linux system. It includes all the necessary build packages of our Arch Linux. The command that is used for this instruction casts off the “pacman” package manager followed by the “-S” option to download and install the base-devel package from “Git”. The output shows that “Git” is already up-to-date and that the base-devel is a group of 26 packages that will be installed. The total installed size is 309.48 MiB. The system then prompts the user to confirm if they want to proceed with the installation. If they choose “yes”, the installation process runs the various hooks like creating the system user accounts, reloading the system manager configuration, creating temporary files, arming the ConditionNeedsUpdate, and updating the info directory file.

Clone the AUR Package

You might have known that the Google Chrome browser is one of the AUR packages which is not officially supported by the Arch Linux system. Thus, if you want to install it on your system, you need to clone it first using the clone instruction from the “Git” version control’s official site. Therefore, we try the following Git clone instruction followed by the URL of the google-chrome repository at Git. With the execution of this instruction, the google-chrome repository is cloned in our local machine which is the Arch Linux. The folder named “google-chrome” has the cloned package. The output shows the progress of the cloning process including the number of objects that are being downloaded, the compression of the files, and the total size of the repository. Once the cloning is complete, the “done” message is displayed.

After cloning an AUR package of google-chrome, we use that package. The “cd” command, which stands for “change directory,” is employed to browse a computer’s file system. In this instance, the operation is used to switch to a directory called “google-chrome” from the current working directory. The working directory where the command is now performed must contain the directory.

The “makepkg” command is a tool that is used to build the packages for the Arch Linux distribution and its derivatives. The “-sri” options tell the makepkg to perform a source-only build using “-s’, -r: to install the required packages to build the package, and -i: to install the package after it is built. The output shows that the makepkg buils the “google-chrome” package with the version number of “109.0.5414.119-1. Then, it checks the runtime dependencies and installs any missing dependencies. In this case, it is the ttf-liberation package version 2.1.5-1. It shows the total download size and the total installed size for this package. Then, it prompts the user for confirmation to proceed with the installation. It then retrieves the ttf-liberation-2.1.5-1 package. Finally, it checks the build time dependencies and retrieves the sources from the internet. This command is successful in installing the google-chrome package on Arch Linux and its derivatives.

There is another way to install the AUR packages if the makepkg command doesn’t work for some hidden reason. Use the “yay” package to install an AUR package like Google Chrome as shown in the following:

Conclusion

It is important to remember that the AUR packages are not officially maintained by the Arch Linux programmers and might not be as thoroughly tested or stable as the authorized packages. Before installation, it’s critical to review the package’s feedback and guidelines. In this guide, we explained a way to easily install some AUR packages like Google Chrome on Arch Linux. It explains the method that covers the cloning of Google Chrome package at the local Arch Linux machine via the Git clone instruction.