[aur-general] AUR package q -- newbie
Dear all, Greetings! Just finished my maiden install of arch-linux on my laptop, with my share of headache. But things are running alright now, I guess. It's kind of difficult to find packages in one place -- e.g.; I could install gedit easily (via pacman), but couldn't find the LaTeX plugin. Searching, I see it is in AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex I see that in the comments section, there's some issue. The package is updated in 2017 last. I know all these will be voluntary work and maybe people don't need this plugin much. For me, I could compile LaTeX source on the fly, using gedit with this plugin. What should I do to install this package? I was hoping just to install and move on with my work. I am into science computing and don't have the knowledge base to make this work/make packages etc. I read good things about Arch, so I picked it. Apologies, I am thankful for the great work all the developers/volunteers do, but at this moment I just would like something that works. Thank you for your time and any help would be greatly appreciated. Raj
On 11/05/20, Raj Kombiyil via aur-general wrote:
Dear all, Greetings! Just finished my maiden install of arch-linux on my laptop, with my share of headache. But things are running alright now, I guess. It's kind of difficult to find packages in one place -- e.g.; I could install gedit easily (via pacman), but couldn't find the LaTeX plugin. Searching, I see it is in AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex I see that in the comments section, there's some issue. The package is updated in 2017 last. I know all these will be voluntary work and maybe people don't need this plugin much. For me, I could compile LaTeX source on the fly, using gedit with this plugin. What should I do to install this package? I was hoping just to install and move on with my work. I am into science computing and don't have the knowledge base to make this work/make packages etc. I read good things about Arch, so I picked it. Apologies, I am thankful for the great work all the developers/volunteers do, but at this moment I just would like something that works. Thank you for your time and any help would be greatly appreciated. Raj
Hi Raj,
See the wiki page regarding AUR and pay extra attention on the rerequisites: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository#Installing_package...
Many use AUR helpers (which come with a big disclaimer that they are not officially supported) https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_helpers
I'd recommend familirize yourself with manual building (use of makepkg) before investing time in an AUR helper.
Cheers, Leonidas
On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 10:09 AM Raj Kombiyil via aur-general < aur-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
Dear all, Greetings! Just finished my maiden install of arch-linux on my laptop, with my share of headache. But things are running alright now, I guess. It's kind of difficult to find packages in one place -- e.g.; I could install gedit easily (via pacman), but couldn't find the LaTeX plugin. Searching, I see it is in AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex I see that in the comments section, there's some issue. The package is updated in 2017 last. I know all these will be voluntary work and maybe people don't need this plugin much. For me, I could compile LaTeX source on the fly, using gedit with this plugin. What should I do to install this package? I was hoping just to install and move on with my work. I am into science computing and don't have the knowledge base to make this work/make packages etc. I read good things about Arch, so I picked it. Apologies, I am thankful for the great work all the developers/volunteers do, but at this moment I just would like something that works. Thank you for your time and any help would be greatly appreciated. Raj
It looks like that AUR package is up to date, but that the latest release of the project does not work properly on newer versions of Gedit. But good news, it looks like the plugin is working on a new release at the moment:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gedit-latex/-/commit/0c8a2b949739024844dd8c26...
So hopefully there will be a release that fixes the bugs soon. Once there is an official release, you can flag the AUR package as out of date, and hopefully the packager will have the time and interest to update the AUR package to the new version. However, it looks like the project has changed their build system, so the AUR packager will have to do more than just bump the version number.
If you want to learn about it in the meantime, Arch Linux packaging is not as complicated as it might seem from the outside. You can look at the PKGBUILDs from AUR packages as examples, and read about packaging on the wiki here:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Creating_packages
If you comment on the AUR page saying that a new release of the plugin is in development, I'm sure other users would be interested to know, and perhaps other users of the package may have the time and motivation to help package the new release, or discuss what might be involved.
-Chris
On 5/11/20 10:09 AM, Raj Kombiyil via aur-general wrote:
Dear all, Greetings! Just finished my maiden install of arch-linux on my laptop, with my share of headache. But things are running alright now, I guess. It's kind of difficult to find packages in one place -- e.g.; I could install gedit easily (via pacman), but couldn't find the LaTeX plugin. Searching, I see it is in AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex I see that in the comments section, there's some issue. The package is updated in 2017 last. I know all these will be voluntary work and maybe people don't need this plugin much. For me, I could compile LaTeX source on the fly, using gedit with this plugin. What should I do to install this package?
One advantage of the AUR is that many people have shared their work in the AUR. One disadvantage is that since they are still, at the end of the day, unsupported, they might become abandoned by their previous user and stop working.
You have a couple of options.
- You can try commenting on the package, asking the maintainer to fix it.
- You can ask here or in the package requests subforum for some kind individual to update it for you, which often (but not always) works: https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewforum.php?id=38
- You can try to do it yourself, and ask for guidance (again, here or on the forums) which has the additional advantage of letting you learn something new, which can be exciting to some, and useful the next time you need a package.
I'm personally willing to provide guidance and help walk people through the process of writing their first PKGBUILD, but I don't just do it for people. However, don't worry, there are definitely other people who are willing to do it for you, so you can certainly ask and there's a good chance one of them will see your request and respond. (I have a gut impression this happens more often on the forums, FWIW.)
To provide a head start, I'll point out that from a quick look at the latest version of this plugin ( https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gedit-latex ) it appears to have been switched from autotools to meson, which might simplify the build process a bit but does require some changes.
I was hoping just to install and move on with my work. I am into science computing and don't have the knowledge base to make this work/make packages etc. I read good things about Arch, so I picked it. Apologies, I am thankful for the great work all the developers/volunteers do, but at this moment I just would like something that works. Thank you for your time and any help would be greatly appreciated.
We appreciate your thanks. :)
I hope you find a quick resolution, see above.
Please note that writing a package can be fairly simple and easy to pick up. In case you end up deciding you'd like to try this out, I would encourage taking a quick look at the following resources to start with:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Creating_packages
and https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Classroom#Previous_classes (I am a big fan of the class titled "The Beginner's Guide to Arch Linux Package Management" :p)
And of course, you are free to ask any questions, we will be more than happy to answer.
Am 11.05.20 um 16:09 schrieb Raj Kombiyil via aur-general:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex I see that in the comments section, there's some issue. The package is updated in 2017 last.
Since I'm using this plugin occasionally, I took the freedom to upload https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex-git/
BR
Hi Marcus, Sorry I don't know where to post such questions. I need to get a working system up and running asap since it helps with work and then understand how to help with packaging etc. Thanks much for your help and time. If I may, since I am like a day old in arch world, pls be kind. I was going through the install messages and it says : You have to install this plugin into the same prefix as your gedit installation (mine installed with pacman -S gedit, resides in /usr/bin/gedit). What I did was : $cd /tmp $git clone https:://AUR.archlinux.org/gedit-latex.git http://aur.archlinux.org/gedit-latex.git $cd gedit-latex $makepkg -Acs $sudo pacman -U gedit-latex-3.20.0-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz ------- Before, I could just write my .Tex file and Ctrl+alt+1 and will get PDF. pdflatex is installed via texlive-most pkg. Here, Ctrl+alt+1 doesn't do anything. What am I missing? Because install was not proper? $which gedit-latex says no gedit-latex in /user/bin etc. Now, gedit can see the plugins and I marked the plugin. And also enabled bottom panel where I see error messages. Here nothing comes. Any idea what I need to do? Since I am teaching a class, I guess wrong time to play with arch :( Thanks in advance for any pointers. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Raj
On Mon, May 11, 2020, 22:14 Markus Schaaf via aur-general < aur-general@archlinux.org> wrote:
Am 11.05.20 um 16:09 schrieb Raj Kombiyil via aur-general:
https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex I see that in the comments section, there's some issue. The package is updated in 2017 last.
Since I'm using this plugin occasionally, I took the freedom to upload https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex-git/
BR
Am 12.05.20 um 05:40 schrieb Raj Kombiyil via aur-general:
Before, I could just write my .Tex file and Ctrl+alt+1 and will get PDF. pdflatex is installed via texlive-most pkg. Here, Ctrl+alt+1 doesn't do anything. What am I missing? Because install was not proper? $which gedit-latex says no gedit-latex in /user/bin etc. Now, gedit can see the plugins and I marked the plugin. And also enabled bottom panel where I see error messages. Here nothing comes. Any idea what I need to do? Since I am teaching a class, I guess wrong time to play with arch :(
If you look at the plugin's settings, there are a couple of commands defined. One of which you are trying to use. The plugin's installation doesn't depend on any of the programs that are setup by default for these commands, because you may want to change them. Or not use all of them. I wouldn't want to install R, for instance, just because the plugin has commands to render *.rnw files. It's your responsibility to install and setup everything, so the commands you use do what you want. If you want to use the default rubber command, you need to install at least 'rubber' and 'texlive-core'. The plugin does no magic. It just calls a command. You may test the very same command in a terminal.
If you have never compiled a latex document on the command line, and are not willing to learn it, then yes Arch isn't for you. Because the very next problem would be finding out how to install additional latex packages, that your document may use.
BR
On Tue, May 12, 2020, 12:34 Markus Schaaf mschaaf@elaboris.de wrote:
Am 12.05.20 um 05:40 schrieb Raj Kombiyil via aur-general:
Before, I could just write my .Tex file and Ctrl+alt+1 and will get PDF. pdflatex is installed via texlive-most pkg. Here, Ctrl+alt+1 doesn't do anything. What am I missing? Because install was not proper? $which gedit-latex says no gedit-latex in /user/bin etc. Now, gedit can see the plugins and I marked the plugin. And also enabled bottom panel where I see error messages. Here nothing comes. Any idea
what
I need to do? Since I am teaching a class, I guess wrong time to play
with
arch :(
If you look at the plugin's settings, there are a couple of commands defined. One of which you are trying to use. The plugin's installation doesn't depend on any of the programs that are setup by default for these commands, because you may want to change them. Or not use all of them. I wouldn't want to install R, for instance, just because the plugin has commands to render *.rnw files. It's your responsibility to install and setup everything, so the commands you use do what you want. If you want to use the default rubber command, you need to install at least 'rubber' and 'texlive-core'. The plugin does no magic. It just calls a command. You may test the very same command in a terminal.
Thank you. I am somewhat familiar with this, tho not an expert by any yardstick.
If you have never compiled a latex document on the command line, and are not willing to learn it, then yes Arch isn't for you.
Ha! Thanks for the encouragement :) Agree. Well, once I set up things to taste in Ubuntu, didn't have to explicitly do this everytime. Been a long while. Hmm I need to familiarize to find packages like beamer etc.
Because the very
next problem would be finding out how to install additional latex packages, that your document may use.
Agreed. Thanks for taking time off to reply + making the package. Let me see if I can grok it - to some extent :D
BR
On 5/12/20 3:04 AM, Markus Schaaf wrote:
If you look at the plugin's settings, there are a couple of commands defined. One of which you are trying to use. The plugin's installation doesn't depend on any of the programs that are setup by default for these commands, because you may want to change them. Or not use all of them. I wouldn't want to install R, for instance, just because the plugin has commands to render *.rnw files. It's your responsibility to install and setup everything, so the commands you use do what you want. If you want to use the default rubber command, you need to install at least 'rubber' and 'texlive-core'. The plugin does no magic. It just calls a command. You may test the very same command in a terminal.
On the other hand, this *would* seem like a good situation in which to use optdepends.
Am 12.05.20 um 13:54 schrieb Eli Schwartz via aur-general:
On the other hand, this *would* seem like a good situation in which to use optdepends.
Thought about this. It's just a suggested/preset command line for a user command. I don't use rubber myself. Why suggest to install it? There is a command to process R files. Shall I suggest installing R, too? The rubber tool itself doesn't optdepend on texlive, much like make doesn't optdepend on binutils or gcc. It's not really clear to me when to optdepend.
BR
It's not really clear to me when to optdepend.
Comments welcome. My idea is to use optdepends for things the user may want, but it's not obvious how to make them work, like a glue-library the application needs to use another facility, e.g. gpgme to use gpg, or ghostscript to produce PDF.
On Tue, 12 May 2020 15:55:58 +0200 Markus Schaaf mschaaf@elaboris.de wrote:
It's not really clear to me when to optdepend.
Comments welcome. My idea is to use optdepends for things the user may want, but it's not obvious how to make them work, like a glue-library the application needs to use another facility, e.g. gpgme to use gpg, or ghostscript to produce PDF.
I always ask myself: Is the dep not required for the core functionality of the package, as in: Are there users that could use this package without it? If so, add it as optdepends and specify the functionality/feature the user might need it for.
It should be the place to go when some feature doesn't work and might need another package.
On Tue, 12 May 2020 15:55:58 +0200 Markus Schaaf mschaaf@elaboris.de wrote:
It's not really clear to me when to optdepend.
Comments welcome. My idea is to use optdepends for things the user may want, but it's not obvious how to make them work, like a glue-library the application needs to use another facility, e.g. gpgme to use gpg, or ghostscript to produce PDF.
As a *user*, I look at an optdepends'ed package as an otherwise independent package that makes the original package better or more useful. I usually think that the original package will use the optdepends'ed package out of the box, especially if the latter is already installed when I install the former, or automatically if I install the latter later. IMO, the more I have to do to configure the main package to use the optdepends'ed package, the relationship degrades from optdepends to something lesser.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/PKGBUILD#optdepends has some good examples. In particular, if I see that a package has an optdepends on CUPS, then I assume that that package detects and uses CUPS all by itself. The package, of course, likely does lots of other things even if it can't print.
Just my 2¢.
On 5/12/20 9:55 AM, Markus Schaaf wrote:
It's not really clear to me when to optdepend.
Comments welcome. My idea is to use optdepends for things the user may want, but it's not obvious how to make them work, like a glue-library the application needs to use another facility, e.g. gpgme to use gpg, or ghostscript to produce PDF.
I'd generally expect an optdepends for something which the program has a built-in ability to use simply by installing the optdepends.
Am 12.05.20 um 17:53 schrieb Eli Schwartz via aur-general:
I'd generally expect an optdepends for something which the program has a built-in ability to use simply by installing the optdepends.
I'm sorry, but since you came up with the (IMO too clever by half) suggestion to add optdepends, I expected a somewhat more elaborate answer, considering the details of *that* package. The problem I have is this:
The package defines a couple of custom commands for compiling (la)tex to PDF and whatnot. (This is IMO a negligibility, because the main purpose of that editor plugin is to provide tools for *editing* latex files, not command suggestions for whatever task the author came up with.) One such command sequence is:
rubber [...] --pdf "$filename" gvfs-open "$shortname.pdf"
Now, rubber is like make, but for latex. And it's of the same complexity. Please have a glance at the man page. What it does and what programs it calls depends largely on the input (and configuration). Like make it may potentially call a lot of different programs. Even before considering which of these to include in optdepends, I would need to know them. I don't use rubber, and by cursory look I haven't found that information. The rubber package itself does not optdepend on anything. Like the make package. Am I supposed to find out? As the maintainer of an editor plugin? You could depend on texlive, but texlive doesn't contain everything. One surely needs more to compile something other than latex Hello-world.
This was the first line. The second is even better. gvfs-open calls the preferred PDF-viewer. Should I decide which? Or suggest all I can find?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to your suggestion to include some helpful optdepends. It's just not *that* easy. Arch is not Debian. I haven't looked, but Debian probably has a virtual package for PDF-viewer and a list of candidates. Ubuntu has flavours where someone decided which of these candidates it is. Even if Arch had flavours, an AUR package would not.
This was only the first command. There are more. :-)
BR
On 5/14/20 1:53 PM, Markus Schaaf wrote:
Am 12.05.20 um 17:53 schrieb Eli Schwartz via aur-general:
I'd generally expect an optdepends for something which the program has a built-in ability to use simply by installing the optdepends.
I'm sorry, but since you came up with the (IMO too clever by half) suggestion to add optdepends, I expected a somewhat more elaborate answer, considering the details of *that* package. The problem I have is this:
The package defines a couple of custom commands for compiling (la)tex to PDF and whatnot. (This is IMO a negligibility, because the main purpose of that editor plugin is to provide tools for *editing* latex files, not command suggestions for whatever task the author came up with.) One such command sequence is:
rubber [...] --pdf "$filename" gvfs-open "$shortname.pdf"
Now, rubber is like make, but for latex. And it's of the same complexity. Please have a glance at the man page. What it does and what programs it calls depends largely on the input (and configuration). Like make it may potentially call a lot of different programs. Even before considering which of these to include in optdepends, I would need to know them. I don't use rubber, and by cursory look I haven't found that information. The rubber package itself does not optdepend on anything. Like the make package. Am I supposed to find out? As the maintainer of an editor plugin? You could depend on texlive, but texlive doesn't contain everything. One surely needs more to compile something other than latex Hello-world.
This was the first line. The second is even better. gvfs-open calls the preferred PDF-viewer. Should I decide which? Or suggest all I can find?
Don't get me wrong. I'm not opposed to your suggestion to include some helpful optdepends. It's just not *that* easy. Arch is not Debian. I haven't looked, but Debian probably has a virtual package for PDF-viewer and a list of candidates. Ubuntu has flavours where someone decided which of these candidates it is. Even if Arch had flavours, an AUR package would not.
This was only the first command. There are more. :-)
I'm no expert on the plugin, I haven't used it and I don't do latex... but the name of the plugin implies it's intended to be used for a specific type of command. If it's just a... general command runner? with a couple of default commands that aren't particularly suited to universal use, then maybe I've misunderstood and it doesn't really merit an optdepends.
I assumed it would be something like e.g. a hardcoded menu entry to run some standard and usually-useful command that most people using it would want to run, with maybe the ability to customize it for exotic needs. Since it's apparently a lot more nebulous than that, I guess I was wrong. Anything that needs to have its command be configured before you can reasonably expect to use it, seems like the user would need to also figure out their own set of dependent software too. There's no out of the box experience.
OK then -- I retract my suggestion.
Am 14.05.20 um 20:05 schrieb Eli Schwartz via aur-general:
but the name of the plugin implies it's intended to be used for a specific type of command. If it's just a... general command runner?
It provides a toolbar and a bit of magic for *editing* latex files: inserting images, item lists, formulas, bibliography etc. -- there is also a button to "build" your document, with a customizable list of external commands. But latex land is not very standardized. There is a plethora of tools with a lot of overlap. Maybe rubber is king and everything falls into place, when I get to know it better. Probably I can decide which optdepends to suggest in half a year.
BR
Am 12.05.20 um 05:40 schrieb Raj Kombiyil via aur-general:
$git clone https:://AUR.archlinux.org/gedit-latex.git Thanks in advance for any pointers. Appreciate it.
BTW, this isn't the package I've uploaded, but the older you complained about. The older one installs rubber and texlive-core, so I'm not sure what your problem is. With my package and rubber installed, I can see error messages from rubber in the bottom pane.
Do yourself a favour and use your new knowledge to install an AUR helper. I like yay. Then use it like you would use pacman, e.g. $ yay -Syu ; yay -S gedit-latex-git rubber texlive-core
BR
On Tue, May 12, 2020, 14:09 Markus Schaaf mschaaf@elaboris.de wrote:
Am 12.05.20 um 05:40 schrieb Raj Kombiyil via aur-general:
$git clone https:://AUR.archlinux.org/gedit-latex.git Thanks in advance for any pointers. Appreciate it.
BTW, this isn't the package I've uploaded, but the older you complained about. The older one installs rubber and texlive-core, so I'm not sure what your problem is. With my package and rubber installed, I can see error messages from rubber in the bottom pane.
Apologies, kind Sir. Mixup is mistake. Somehow downloaded the file which was there earlier and about which someone else had complained (that it was giving error). I removed the package and installed yours. Works like a charm. If there's a place where I can upvote/something pl let me know. Also, this thread can be closed.
Do yourself a favour and use your new knowledge to install an AUR helper. I like yay. Then use it like you would use pacman, e.g. $ yay -Syu ; yay -S gedit-latex-git rubber texlive-core
Will do. Again, thanks a lot for the help. I thank all the wonderful people who helped besides giving info on how to make packages. Appreciate it.
BR
Am 12.05.20 um 13:03 schrieb Raj Kombiyil via aur-general:
charm. If there's a place where I can upvote/something pl let me know.
Well, on https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gedit-latex-git/ there is a link "Vote for this package" on the right side, which is meant to count active users, or such.
BR
participants (8)
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Chris Billington
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Dan Sommers
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Eli Schwartz
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hashworks
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Leonidas Spyropoulos
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Markus Schaaf
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Markus Schaaf
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Raj Kombiyil