How to choose the right package to install in endreavourOS

General system Newbie
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Example when use “yay -Ss brave” and result show out:

aur/brave 1.49.128-1 (+136 3.73)
Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default
aur/brave-bin 1:1.49.132-1 (+675 16.06) (Installed: 1:1.48.171-2)
Web browser that blocks ads and trackers by default (binary release)

And what is (+136 3.73) (+675 16.06) in end of packages.

2

With this one you build the browser yourself on you machine from the source.

With this one, you install the binary someone else already build.

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When it comes to AUR packages, there are often a lot of options.

Specific to packages in the AUR, brave is a package you build yourself from source. brave-bin is a prebuilt binary built by someone else.

The numbers are the number of votes and the popularity score. Again, these are specific to AUR.

The AUR packages are maintained by the community and the package with the higher number of votes are often considered candidates to be brought into the Arch repos.

Anyone can vote. You can login to the AUR site to do it: https://aur.archlinux.org

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Thank @pebcak @dalto

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Welcome to EnOS’ community @moclan!

:enos_flag: :handshake:t5:

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Regarding “someone else built” - if you view the brave-bin PKGBUILD file, easily found via the aur.archlinux.org package search, you’ll see the brave-bin package is set up to pull the binary from Brave’s github and extract it onto your system.

This is potentially significantly safer than if I built the same code and stuck it somewhere for your AUR helper to download and extract.

Review and scrutiny on PKGBUILDS is a good thing.

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Sorry if it is off topic.
Does this mean that:

  1. AUR packages get moved later on to Arch repos?
  2. Arch repos or main repos (non AUR) contain earlier versions of packages in AUR? All of them?
  3. Does this mean I can ditch AUR and stick to Arch/main repos?
  4. Would ditching AUR make my system safer and more stable?
  5. Can I do this by just issuing sudo pacman commands only and not use yay or paru?

Sorry if it is off topic but it is somehow related.

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Sorry @moclan I just noticed this is your first time.
Welcome to the wonderful world of EndeavourOS.
The best of the best.
I hope and I am sure you will enjoy the distro and the wonderful community here.

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Lotsa questions - few answers! :grin:

  1. That’s a firm maybe. IF it is popular, and requested enough, it may be moved. The converse is also true…if a package in the main repos declines in usage/popularity it may be shifted back the the AUR.

  2. Again a maybe - NOT all of them. a reasonable number may have migrated over the years.

  3. Of course you CAN, only you can answer as to whether you should. Unquestionably it is a ‘lower risk’ proposition overall, but not by a huge amount. Most AUR packages are maintained, usually carefully, by Arch users - but it never hurts to read the PKGBUILD to see how it is done!

  4. Yes. Measurably. But probably NOT significantly, it you see the difference. A tenth of 1% IS measurable, for example, but rarely significant.

  5. IF you do this, then only pacman is required - the others are AUR helpers. They can be skipped even IF you use some AUR goodies should you wish to - they help you do the build and install procedures that you can do directly if you wish. Another way of skipping yay and paru is to use AppImages or flatpacks for things you might have gotten from the AUR. Your call there. FOr instance I use yay, and have 1 AppImage and no flatpacks on my system - and have never had a system so stable in my computing life (Not even my C64!).

Hope that helps…

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It is possible but not common.

No

Only if you don’t need any packages from AUR.

That depends on a lot of different factors.

Yes.

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Amazing and wonderful community as usual.
Thank you very much @freebird54 and @dalto

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