The webkit2gtk (version 2.5) package moved to AUR now builds from sources what should you do?

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1

If you are trying to update or install an AUR package and your system suddenly starts a massive, hours-long compilation of webkit2gtk, stop the process. The Problem: Naming Confusion Previously, the official repositories contained two packages:

  1. webkit2gtk-4.1(extra repo) (The modern version)
  2. webkit2gtk(AUR now) (The legacy 2.5 version)

The legacy version (webkit2gtk) has been moved to the AUR. Now, when an older AUR package lists webkit2gtk as a dependency, your AUR helper (like yay or paru) finds it in the AUR and tries to build it from source. This is rarely what you want.

This is insane? yes do not do that please!. remove that dangerous outdated thing and use the version from repo https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/webkit2gtk-4.1/ if you can.

If you have something that really depends on the 2.5 version there are a bin version on the AUR:
webkit2gtk-bin (precompiled) —> https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/webkit2gtk-bin

And you can also find this thing:

A Dummy package redirecting webkit2gtk to webkit2gtk-4.1 so you can build AURs that has webkit2gtk still in PKGBUILD but may would also simply work with 4.1 version of it.

and only to complete… use yay -Qi webkit2gtk to check what is depending on it..

Advice for AUR Users

If you encounter a package that still forces the legacy webkit2gtk from source, please leave a comment on that package’s AUR page. Suggest that the maintainer updates the PKGBUILD to support webkit2gtk-4.1 or at least points users toward the -bin alternative.

Or link to that here so someone with an account can hint on the AUR page.

3

Why this convoluted setup for webkit2gtk? If webkit2gtk is already present in Arch extra repos as a package then why have the same package in AUR?

4

It’s an older version in the AUR. If you have a package that depends on said version, using the dummy package or failing that, the bin will be better than compiling from source.

5

exactly before repo had both as packages webkit2gtk-4.1 and webkit2gtk what is version 2.5 naming is a bit screwed indeed. older version is now removed and some AUR builds need to get updated to what ever they support. I was only showing some workarounds in case you need something that depends on old version.

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updated the first post with better details

6

I was also affected by this issue because of bambustudio-nvidia-bin and bambustudio-bin were using it for some reason. The dev of the nvidia-bin aur remove the dependency but I had to clear cache and reinstall it in order for it to pick up the aur change. Someone also created an aur package to fill the dependecy

It might help some people with packages that uses it.

For me it had 8000+ steps and took forever to compile on my 9800X3D with NVME and 64 GB of DDR5 6000 and my surface running EOS had hard time compiling it. It was taking so long that I often forgot to monitor it and had to redo it again.

Edit : Just reread the 1st post and OP is already talking about the package I suggested.