[aur-general] Misconceptions about the AUR?

[Loui Chang]

On Fri 02 Mar 2012 00:49 +0100, Heiko Baums wrote:
> Am Fri, 02 Mar 2012 09:21:33 +1000
> schrieb Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org>:
> 
> > You do realize who first came up with the workaround for adding split
> > packages to the AUR...   Because from memory it was figured out in the
> > TU IRC channel.
> 
> I don't know, because I'm not in the IRC channels. But if I recall
> correctly this workaround was also discussed in the forums and/or the
> mailing lists. This was at a time when it was still discussed if AUR
> shall support split packages or not.
> 
> The package splittest which was meant to test this workaround and to
> give a sample PKGBUILD was uploaded to AUR by Harvie, a normal user.
> And if I recall correctly it was him who first came up with it. But I
> can be wrong.
> 
> The problem is if you add a subpackage of a split package into a
> depends array as György did it just can't be installed, because AUR
> don't know anything about those subpackages, because it doesn't support
> split packages. And thus the AUR wrappers can't find them. So it's
> not possible to install those packages.

First of all I'll deplore you for hijacking György's TU Application
thread to rant about your own qualms. You should be ashamed. You should
apologise. You are wrong.

Secondly. If a PKGBUILD can be built with makepkg then it IS a valid
PKGBUILD. No matter what you say. If an AUR helper cannot process it,
then there is a problem with the AUR helper, not the AUR and not the
PKGBUILD.

Third. The AUR is not meant to help you build source packages. It hosts
them, and parses the tarballs only for convenience. You are supposed to
install it by your own means. If your means are buggy, that's your
problem.

Finally, yes, there are problems with Arch source packages but you're
missing the solution by lightyears. These things have been discussed on
the list, the forums, and the bugtracker. You would be keen to do a
little research and perhaps propose solutions (patches?) rather than
wasting precious oxygen.

Cheers.