Notes about Arch Linux packages

Here are some notes about Arch Linux packages.

Building packages

Arch Linux packages can be found in two main places: official repositories and Arch User Repository (AUR). Official repositories are managed throw the Arch Build System (ABS). Users interact with them thanks to pacman. AUR is managed by users and only contain sources, not binary packages.

To build a package, you need to install base-devel and use makepkg. The main component of a package is the PKGBUILD description file, which describes where to download sources and how to compile binary files. Once you have a PKGBUILD (and additional files such as patches) in a directory, to build and install the package you just need to issue:

makepkg -si

-s option means install missing dependencies using pacman. -i option means install the package after it is built.

You should customize your /etc/makepkg.conf file before launching the build, for example to set up the packager name:

PACKAGER="Myself <root@localhost>"

It is also possible to enable parallel build and to use a temporary build directory

cat >> /etc/makepkg.conf << EOF
MAKEFLAGS="-j4"  # According to $(nproc)
BUILDDIR=/tmp/makepkg
EOF
cat >> /etc/fstab << EOF
makepkg /tmp/makepkg tmpfs defaults,auto,nodev,nosuid,exec,gid=100,uid=1000,mode=0700 0 0
EOF

For more information read the wiki! Here are some links:

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Build_System

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/makepkg

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Official_Repositories

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pacman_Tips

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PKGBUILD

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Yaourt

Yaourt, pacaur and trizen

yaourt (Yet AnOther User Repository Tool), pacaur and trizen ease the installation of packages from the AUR. Their interfaces are similar to pacman but they can download, build and install user packages too, wrapping both makepkg and pacman.

yaourt includes -G option (--getpkgbuild) to get a PKGBUILD file for a specified package.

pacaur main advantage lies in keeping the downloaded PKGBUILD and their git history in a directory, $HOME/.cache/pacaur/, which allows tracking changes when upgrading AUR packages.

trizen is a more recent one and can replace pacaur.

Debug build

To build packages with debug symbols, you need to change OPTIONS variable in /etc/makepkg.conf. Here is the default configuration:

OPTIONS=(strip docs !libtool !staticlibs emptydirs zipman purge !upx !debug)

You just need to add and remove some bangs following your needs:

OPTIONS=(!strip docs !libtool !staticlibs emptydirs zipman purge !upx debug)