Install Yaourt, the AUR Helper

One of arch linux based advantage is access to AUR (Arch User Repository). To install AUR package we need tool, the AUR helpers.

There are many AUR Helpers. The most popular AUR helper is yaourt. The problem is that, yaourt is not available in official package. yoaurt itself is an AUR package.

So how do we install an AUR helper, without AUR helper ? Manual install, makepkg is the way.

Reading:

Let me quote from link above:

The global consensus is that Arch users should learn to build manually with makepkg before using an AUR helper.

Manjaro User

Yaourt comes pre-installed with Manjaro so you normally won’t have to install it.

Base Devel

Yaourt do automatic compilation of source code given from AUR. Since we are dealing with development here, before you begin, make sure you have base-devel installed.

$ sudo pacman -S base-devel

The Package Query

AUR Helper need one required package as a dependency. It is package-query

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/package-query/

You can either

Download the snapshot

$ wget -c https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/package-query.tar.gz
$ tar -xzvf package-query.tar.gz

or clone

$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/package-query.git

Then

$ cd package-query
$ makepkg -i
$ cd ..

Always RTFM

$ man package-query

Play with this tool

$ package-query -Ai package-query

Package Query Command in Shell

The Yaourt

With the same procedure:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/yaourt/

You can either

Download the snapshot

$ wget -c https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/yaourt.tar.gz
$ tar -xzvf yaourt.tar.gz

or clone

$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yaourt.git

Then

$ cd yaourt
$ makepkg -i
$ cd ..

Always RTFM

$ man yaourt

Using pacman

There’s another workaround if you don’t want to do automatic compilation.

 $ sudo nano pacman.conf

and write these three lines.

[archlinuxfr]
SigLevel = PackageOptional
Server = http://repo.archlinux.fr/$arch

Do sync your repo, and install both

$ pacman -Syu
$ sudo pacman -S package-query yaourt

After both package installed, you can safely remove the archlinuxfr section from /etc/pacman.conf.

Using yaourt

After yaourt installed, you can use yaourt to query your package.

$ yaourt yaourt

You can see the result in image below

Configuration

Yaourt comes with config file. Just copy them to your home directory

$ cat /etc/yaourtrc
$ cp /etc/yaourtrc ~/.yaourtrc

I left my ~/.yauortrc config as below to avoid too many confirmation question from yaourt.

# SUDO
SUDONOVERIF=1      # Avoid multiple sudo checks when timestamp_timeout=0

# Prompt
BUILD_NOCONFIRM=1  # Only prompt for editing files
EDITFILES=0

# Command
MAKEPKG="makepkg --skippgpcheck"

This configuration is very helpful if you maintain your AUR upgrade regularly with a lot of Syua option in yaourt. This command will update all your AUR at once.

Make sure you know what you are doing when skipping PGP Verification.

$ yaourt -Syua

Thank you for reading