I can’t see being without yay. I would rather use the AUR than any other method to install other software such as flatpacks or any others. Arch doesn’t include it but then again Arch doesn’t even install nano or inxi or linux-headers but yet it includes discover. 
Edit: Of course if you are installing Arch the long way then you have to install mostly everything anyway that is needed or wanted.
I know the AUR is unofficial. Like Flatpak. And to get zoom, onlyoffice, interesting browsers etc it’s pick your unofficial poison. I chose AUR and have built my own packages and installed my own binaries.
I think I know what you are telling me here between the lines. since flatpaks are self-contained and sandboxed there is no worries since not many system libraries are utilized. you will be lucky (UN MILAGRO) to have a flatpak browser even be able to spellcheck…
…but AUR PKGBUILDS are tied directly to the native Endeavour (host) system, uses their libraries, its deps, and if deps aren’t there pulls in its own deps, so there is more danger with yay -Sc in this context. Am I getting that right?
I think more of what I’m getting at is flatpaks also aren’t directly supported by Arch and they also didn’t make my guide. 
You have to specifically set them up to work on your computer and therefore you understand the risk as well as take on that burden of maintenance on your own (not me) during the setup process.
So, same apples for AUR. If you’re using them, then you have accepted what it takes to use/maintain them.
Ehhhh. Without the AUR, I wouldn’t even be using Arch or an Arch derivative like EnOS. This is a unique selling point. Where else could I get unmodified programs automatically updated?
I make sure to look at the PKGBUILD and at the sources, though. I can also update some orphaned AUR program PKGBUILDs manually with little effort.
It doesn’t really. You could choose what package group or meta package to install.
If you want a minimal environment, just install plasma-desktop and build it up yourself.
If you choose the plasma group, you will get a lot of K-stuff (and the Kitchen Sink 
).
Alternatively you could also use this: GitHub - MatMoul/archfi: Arch Linux Fast Installer : tutorial installer and customize to your satifaction.
I’m just saying the archinstall script when you select a desktop doesn’t have inxi, nano, linux-headers and a lot of other useful things that EOS has.
Ah, I didn’t see any reference to the archinstall script.
I thought you were talking about a “traditional” arch install and that it includes “discover”.
I guess when you chose plasma in “archinstall script” that means the plasma group including disccover etc.
I personally stick to using Arch-based distros for an abundance of reasons, none of which happen to be the AUR (while I understand still that many can’t live without it).
Some examples from the top of my head would be:
For me personally, packages that I usually end up getting from AUR are packages that I can’t really afford to compile myself for hours on every release (eg Librewolf) on a 5yo laptop… So in such cases, having to get pre-built binaries from the AUR anyway, I might even prefer having an out-of-the-box solution for flaptaks rather than AUR/yay because I expect flatpaks to be closer to “official” releases and not having to keep an eye on who maintains what package on AUR.
Would you use Arch without AUR?
I’d probably use Void Linux. The AUR is the only thing I miss there.
No the archinstall script with Kde is using Wayland and doesn’t install a lot of the things that EOS has. I have to install yay, nano, inxi, linux-headers, neofetch, nvidia drivers etc. Sure you can add adiitional packages that are in arch in the script. But some things you have to install after from the AUR and or with pacman etc. I thought dracut was there to but i was on my EOS machine not realizing when i checked. That happens a lot when you have too many computers.
Edit: I have no interest in installing the traditional way anymore. It’s time consuming and you have to know and remember too many details to get the proper packages installed to make it work properly. Most novice users lack that knowledge and that s why they choose certain distros.
So now that we’re in a proper topic.
What I said was it’s that I wish we didn’t ship yay with the install.
And
Just like you do in Arch.
I never said or implied there would be no AUR availability. That’s ridiculous.
You needed to remove the posts because obviously it would lead to more posts as it did. So here we are! Let’s talk about it.
No.
Most of the applications I install from the AUR are those that are available from PPAs, RPMFusion or Packman in other distros. And I’m too lazy to work out how to build them myself.
Arch plus Nix package manager maybe? 
Maybe a somewhat uncommon point of view. I used Arch before AUR existed. I liked Arch, it never toppled Debian as my favorite OS, but it was definitely a strong second choice. I stopped using it due to the instability of the developers for a while and getting tired of weekly messages of “you’ll need to chroot your install and do this after this upgrade as the upgrade breaks the system”. I came back after the squirrels stopped breaking it weekly (for a couple years) and AUR became one of the reasons that I stayed using it again, since many other OS’s improved a lot as well, but AUR now just makes building the system I want so EASY. Although I do also use Flatpaks for a couple things as well.
I think this is a good point. Every distro has their own unofficial repos for things that aren’t included with their distro. I suppose the real question here is what distro would you use if you couldn’t obtain third party packages.
Maybe I am the outlier, but I use Arch without the AUR. Well, that’s not completely true. I have trizen installed IF I ever want to use the AUR, I just have never had to use it. 
I have no interest in installing someone else’s Arch based concoction, so a manual installation is my go to method. However, I have scripted the process and can easily install Arch the way I like with minimal effort and no need to remember all the commands. 
