I wouldn’t…
But I think (based on 14 years of using Linux distros full time) that it’s highly likely that someone would package those applications and make them available.
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Yes i understand this. But myself with the limited experience i really have when it comes to all things Linux and especially Arch i just find it easier as i don’t really want to spend the time and try to remember every step of the way. Not that i can’t do it but don’t want to. But as far as the topic is concerned i can’t see using Arch without the AUR myself. I don’t know that much about package build but using yay I’ve not had many issues. It just works for me.
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Well, you ship Plasma with the new image. Does this mean you support it? Certainly not. Same goes for yay.
EndeavourOS strives to be Arch, but a bit more accessible and user-friendly. Making access to the AUR hard defeats this purpose. And yay is a good tool for this – most options come from pacman, easy to learn, and with less than 10 MB for the binary certainly affordable.
Nobody assumes that you said or implied this. See paragraph above. It’s about ease of access.
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Trying to use it as few as possible for security reasons.
But yeah, it’s arch killer feature.
Not only the amount of packages and how actively most of them maintained, but also because it’s so easy to made your own.
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You can use zoom from browser or download a .tar package for Arch on their website - https://zoom.us/download
Onlyoffice is available as .appimage officialy.
Yep, this is the real question for me.
If there were somehow no unofficial repos to use, I would either still be using Windows or be using a Linux distro that emulates Windows as closely as possible. This is simply because I wouldn’t know any better since there wouldn’t be any better.
Just in typing that I realized just how much using Linux has made me learn about what’s available and what I am no longer okay with.
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I wouldn’t use Arch without the AUR. The only distro I used for a long time is Ubuntu and I never liked how ppa-s worked, it was a mess, some ppa repos were incompatible with other repos. I stopped using Ubuntu when they started pushing the snap craziness. I tried fedora, but I remember I couldn’t find repos for a few things and I never liked installing software without a package manager.
I would use some debian based system or fedora. The package management and up to date software are the main selling points for me. I just love when I can update and get everything with one command. In two years I couldn’t find anything that’s not available from the AUR(maybe some gnome theme or icons). The only thing I didn’t install from the AUR is flutter(Not sure why, I think the maintainer was a bit slow with updates).
nix and flatpak seem to not be that efficient with the resources, especially disk space and ram. Some flatpak apps just don’t act right. Don’t even start me on nix and that famous reproducibility.
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For whatever it’s worth while I said that if I had it my way Endeavour wouldn’t ship an AUR helper in default installation. I absolutely would never imagine using Endeavour or Arch without the AUR. The AUR is fantastic.
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it’s impossible to answer. Arch–the OS, the sensibility, the ethos-- agrees with me, like solus.
no AUR? flatpak, install yourself or compile it…no luck there with your app du jour? put on your big boy pants, stop crying, and give a comparable foss app a chance. If you have an open mind you can do it.
can’t find the big boy pants? then AUR all the way.
do I have AUR? oh hell yes, about 6 packages.
there’s a point you have to ask yourself: who do I trust?
flatpak?
or some dude/dudette dedicated to Arch and maintaining the driver package to my printer or providing binaries to a bitchin browser?
I tip my hat to the Arch enthusiast since I can see the code. that’s about it.
Arch without an AUR? The memes would dry up that is for sure. I like Arch better than Fedora or anything Debian by a mile.
Arch without AUR would be Solus: a unique diamond that is way ahead of the rest. I would still use Arch daily without an AUR.
but it’s a sexy selling point no doubt.
I daily Fedora. . . and use repos, flatpak and copr . . .
I trust even Canonical more than Google. Albeit, maybe not by a lot.
I used Fedora from 37 to 38 and it was sensible, stable, ordinary. I liked it. Budgie was a little plain but there really wasn’t room for complaint [endeavour does a much better budgie]. Day in, day out. But it never felt like an adventure. A part of me felt I was a fool for leaving true linux stability but it didn’t float my boat as they say. I did trust COPR. I love and understand DNF.
it’s all subjective, that is for sure.
Gentoo has overlays and if NixOS would also serve this well.
That said, for both Deb and Rpm packages, source.deb and SRPM exit.
AUR is a major reason to why I use Arch (EndeavourOs though 
).
I don’t have a lot of AUR packages installed but I love having that available in case there is something I need.
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Same. There are a few things that aren’t available in the Arch repos that I either rely on or just like to have…
[wombat64@endeavour ~]$ pacman -Qm
bluemail 1.140.14-1
cider-bin 1.6.2-3
dropbox 191.4.4995-1
google-chrome 123.0.6312.58-1
icloud-for-linux-git r38.66d3cd9-1
klassy 6.0.breeze6.0.2-2
mission-center 0.4.4-2
onlyoffice-bin 8.0.1-1
ttf-ms-win11-auto 10.0.22631.2428-1
webapp-manager 1.3.4-2
[wombat64@endeavour ~]$
My usage of the arch user repository got to a minimum, since flatpaks became a thing. Pretty sure I can live without the aur. A few days on void linux taught me that.
Most likely not. I will live by with Flatpaks, but I don’t think I will even look near Arch if the AUR didn’t exist. I quite honestly don’t care that much anymore for doing everything myself. I just want sane defaults that I can customize if I don’t like them. I’m not in the business of DIYing everything and anything about my system. It’s why I chose EndeavourOS honestly: it provides some sane defaults and nice bonuses so I can get to my stuff without worrying about me being a dumdum and not setting up my OS correctly.
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Eh, maybe one day I’ll try to re create this thread again to what it was supposed to be. Oh well.
Read this reply only, if you don’t value your time. The answer is “most probably yes”.
It depends. If the AUR didn’t exist, than many more packages would be part of the official repository I assume; something in Extra or so. But I feel like Archlinux would be much more insecure without the AUR, because people would rely on all different Git sources and non standard install scripts, which then are no longer monitored and reported through the AUR system or rely on PyPI repo.
But with Flatpak and AppImage, and possibly openSUSE Build Service (an automated build system creating packages in several formats I believe), Nix package (can be installed separately to use their repo, can be used in Steam Deck as well), and finally Distrobox (install any package from any distro in a container format through Podman or Docker), we have ton of alternative options to go.
In short, without AUR Arch would be less attractive, but not a good reason to switch to other distributions, as they don’t have a good alternative to AUR or are imperfect otherwise. This is me in a long way to say Yes.
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That’s how 
feels about 
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