I tried to install FD via Add/Remove Software and the 1st time it told me build failed.
I thought it was perhaps because I was still using Librewolf. So I quit Lw, then tried again. It started the building, but is has now been doing that for more than 40 mins.
I know building can take a long(ish?) time, but 40 mins.?
BTW, in the 1st effort it did install “kfiredragonhelper”.
its available on Chaotic-AUR repo - just add that and install the binary.
You might find it easier to use the chaotic-aur repo instead - it is regularly rebuilt for you that way. These are the packages on there ATM.
firedragon-101.0.1-3-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
Librewolf fork build using custom branding, settings & KDE patches by OpenSUSE
firedragon-beta-znver2-101.0.1-2-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst
Librewolf fork build using custom branding, settings & KDE patches by OpenSUSE
firedragon-extension-plasma-integration-1.8.1-2.1-any.pkg.tar.zst
Plasma browser integration addon for FireDragon
firedragon-extension-xdm-browser-monitor-2.2-1-any.pkg.tar.zst
xdm browser monitor addon for firedragon
This link should give you all you need to add it, if you want it…
What is the difference between AUR and Chaotic-AUR?
It is a dependency of firedragon as can be seen here:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/firedragon?all_deps=1#pkgdeps
AUR is a collection of PKGBUILD I.e. scripts to build a package. The AUR helper uses this script to build the package on your computer.
But things like browsers take a long time to build on normal computers.
Chaotic AUR is a repo having pre built binaries of some of packages available in the AUR that are frequently used and take a long time to build.
It is Garuda’s repo, it contains pre-compiled binaries that do not need to be built.
A browser is a huge piece of software. Building it from source can take anywhere from 30 minutes to many hours depending on your hardware and how much resources you allocate to building.
AUR is part of the Arch ecosystem and is, as @sradjoker describes a collection of instructions on how to download, build and/or install packages. It is a completely transparent community maintained library and as long as you review the PKGBUILDs(The instructions for downloading and building the packages), it is one of the safest ways to install packages on your system because it puts you in control.
Chaotic-aur is a 3rd party repository with prebuilt binary packages. Before using any 3rd party repository I would urge to read:
Above and beyond the dangers that come with any 3rd party repo, there are additional considerations when using chaotic-aur.
Because of the type and sheer number of the packages in chaotic-aur, it increases complexity on your system and can cause dependency management to be more challenging where have an increased likelihood of conflicts. We see this on the forum quite a bit where someone has an update blocked because they are using chaotic-aur.
Because of the way pacman works, you can’t easily pick and choose what you install from chaotic-aur. Once chaotic-aur is on your repo list, it will always take priority over AUR. Even if you install something from AUR, the updates will come from chaotic-aur if the package is in the repo.
That’s correct. It’s difficult, although I think it is possible, if you use pacman and AUR Helper’s parameters properly.
I haven’t done it myself though…
For installing packages you can simply install aur/packagename. The problem is updates where you would have to do something fairly elaborate like conditionally switching pacman.conf files.
Dalto, thanks for that detailed explanation.
OK, it is good to know that building can take hours. I took some of the above answers to mean to cancel the ongoing building process and go for Chaotic Aur. That is not their fault at all, it is entirely my own, primarily my impatience, I am embarrassed to say.
I then went ahead with installing Chaotic Aur as per the page @freebird54 linked to. Installing Powerpill failed: “command not found”. I left it at that.
Your warning against using Chaotic Aur scared me a bit because I am not a Linux expert by a long shot, as you have noticed. So, can I just go back to Add/Remove Software and click on FireDragon again to install? If so, will it pick up where it left off?
First, my warning is meant to educate so you can make an informed decision, not say “don’t do this”.
If you want to remove chaotic-aur, you can probably just remove it from /etc/pacman.conf. Next time firedragon updates it will get updated from AUR.
It would be better if you use a terminal AUR helper such as say that is shipped with 
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/aur/yay-an-aur-helper-written-in-go/2021/03/
If something goes wrong, you at least know the error message and can either do a web search or ask here at the forum.
Once you are adding several repo’s to your pacman.conf it is better to do package management from the terminal.
Add/remove software is called pamac and is developed by Manjaro and doesn’t exactly work well with Arch based distros.
More info here:
https://discovery.endeavouros.com/articles/does-endeavouros-frown-upon-gui-solutions-for-pacman/2019/11/
I got that, but for a newbie like me it means “stay away from it until you are more familiar with Arch”.
I will remove the bit I added to /etc/pacman.conf.
But my question remains: can I just go back to Add/Remove Software and click on FireDragon again to install? If so, will it pick up where it left off?
If not, should I remove anything before I go via Add/Remove again? If so, how should I remove, and what?
OK, I will use YAY from now on. Having interrupted the process while on the Add/Remove window, can I just go yay -S firedragon in the terminal?
Removing the repo won’t remove the firedragon you have installed. It should still be installed.
Nope, it is not installed because I interrupted the process.
If you use add/remove software it may continue to use the binary objects you have already built or it may clean build. I am not sure how that tool works.
If you use a different tool it will start over because it’s files will be in a different location.
OK, in view of @sradjoker I will install it with yay.
For completeness sake I assume it is better to remove the binaries already installed with Add/Remove Software: if so, please tell me how to do that.
Try looking at your cache folder. Most probably it would be there. I’m not sure as I’ve not used Pamac for more than a few days.