Have you ever waited for an hour (or more) for an AU-to-compile package on your arc system? Do you find yourself avoiding certain applications simply because the compilation time is unbearable? Well, let me introduce you to Chaotic-Aur and how it has completely changed my arc experience.
The aur is powerful, but maybe painfully slow
One of the reasons why me, and many others, Aimons Arch Linux is the user repository (AUR) – a framework focused on the community where you can find more than 60,000 packages and actively maintained counting! Although it is not technically an exhaustive collection of applications, it certainly resembles one – filled with many popular Linux applications that are not found in the main rests: nucleus, extra and multilibs.
That said, there is a major problem with AUR: some packages can take a long time to install! Indeed, the AUR does not contain the packages but rather contains installation scripts called pkgbuilds. These provide instructions on how to download and install software. Depending on the package, this may involve downloading the source code of the application, then compile it locally on your system, which can take a long time.
Consequently, if you download a very large package, such as a browser or ide, and your system is not powerful enough, the AUR package can take an hour (or more) to install. In addition, some of these packages could force you to recompile them during an update, which makes them even more long -term hassle!
Why some aur packages take so long to install
Without becoming too technical, almost all the applications you use are coded in a language readable by man called his source code. Unfortunately, a machine cannot read this source code. Therefore, to execute the application, a PC must compile the source code and transform it into a machine -readable format called binary.
From now on, in the official references of the arc, all applications and packages are available as binary – they are precompiled. However, most AUR PKGBUilds, unless they end with the “-bin” suffix, will download the source code of the application, then compile it on your system. Consequently, if you install a very large AUR package – like a browser or an IDE, and it is not available in binary – the process can literally take hours. For example, I recently tried to install the lemon emulator using AUR, and it took me more than an hour to compile my Ryzen 5 5600g processor.
You can and should Read the PKGBUILD to find out what it installs. It is not only a good practice from the point of view of security, but also helps you to know if you need to compile the package or if it is precompiled.
How Chaotic-Aur solves this problem
The chaotic-aur is a third-party benchmark which takes popular packages of the ordinary aur, the precompys on their servers and distributes them as binaries ready to install. This completely eliminates compilation waiting time for the packages included and thus solves one of the biggest problems in AUR.
Now, the chaotic -aur does not precomple all the packets of the AUR because it is not practically possible – there are tens of thousands of them, and many are not even actively maintained. In addition, chaotic-aur automates the compilation process, and it can fail if the PKGBUILD file contains incorrect instructions, which it can in some cases.
As such, it focuses on two main categories – the a really popular packages that people frequently download and the big AUR packages that take an eternity to compile. We are talking about things like Obs Studio, Firefox ESR, Chromium and Brave Browser – Applications that can take from 30 minutes to several hours to build from source.
I must also mention that unlike the ordinary AUR, where anyone can download a PKGBUILD, you cannot just add chaotic-aur packages by yourself. What you can do is ask for an AU package to include in chaotic-aur by subjecting a problem on their github. From there, the maintainers will examine whether it is logical to add it according to popularity and compilation time.
Is chaotic-aur sure?
The chaotic -aur is as sure as the ordinary aur – either, nothing less! Maintenanceers take exactly the same PKGBUILDS in the ordinary aur, compiled them on their servers and distribute the binaries. They do not add safety layers on top, and they do not introduce new vulnerabilities. The packages you get from Chaotic-Aur are functionally identical to what you will get if you compile them yourself from the AUR. This means that Chaotic-Aur has the same level of risk as the use of the ordinary aur. You should always make your reasonable diligence when downloading the AUR packages – Consult the PKGBUILD, check the Maintain, read the comments and stay informed of any security problem.
How to install and use chaotic-aur
The installation of the chaotic-aur is relatively simple and barely takes more than a few minutes, where you enter some consecutive commands. First of all, enter the following commands one after the other to import the primary keys necessary to install the list of keys and chaotic mirror:
sudo pacman-key --recv-key 3056513887B78AEB --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com
sudo pacman-key
Then enter these two commands to install the Chaotic-Keyring and Chaotic-Mirrorlist packages:
sudo pacman -U 'https://cdn-mirror.chaotic.cx/chaotic-aur/chaotic-keyring.pkg.tar.zst'
sudo pacman -U 'https://cdn-mirror.chaotic.cx/chaotic-aur/chaotic-mirrorlist.pkg.tar.zst'
Once finished, enter this order:
sudo nano /etc/pacman.conf
This will open the Pacman.Conf file using the Nano text editor. You will have to scroll down the file and add this line:
[chaotic-aur]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/chaotic-mirrorlist
Press CTRL + O C. CTRL + X tracking to save and get out of Nano, and enter this command to synchronize your system and update the package database:
sudo pacman -Syu
That’s it! You have managed to configure Chaotic-Aur on your Arch Linux system. You can now install packages from it as easily as you install packages from the official deposit with a simple command like:
sudo pacman -S package-name
Chaotic-Aur has truly transformed my Arch Linux experience by eliminating the bottle of compilation which has made certain AUR packages feel prohibited. If you are tired of looking at the progression bars instead of using your applications, try it; The configuration only takes a few minutes and you will wonder how you lived without him.
