[aur-general] AUR package q -- newbie

[Eli Schwartz]

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.

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

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