Aura
Aura is a multilingual package manager for Arch Linux written in Haskell. It connects to both the official ABS repositories and to the Arch User Repository, allowing easy control of all packages on an Arch system. It allows all pacman operations and provides new custom ones for dealing with AUR packages. This differs from some other AUR helpers.
Contents
Philosophy
Aura's philosophy as a package manager can be viewed in more detail here. The main points are summarized below.
- Aura is Pacman - All pacman operators and their sub-options are allowed.
- ABS and AUR are separate - New aura-only operators are introduced for handling AUR packages.
- Quiet Building - Makepkg output is suppressed by default. Unsuppress by using
-x
alongside-A
. - Run as Root, Build as a User - Running makepkg as root or with
sudo
is dangerous. Aura builds packages with normal user privileges, even when run withsudo
. - Know your System - Editing PKGBUILDs mid-build is not default behaviour. All package research should be done prior to building.
- Downgradibility - Aura caches built package files, so they can be managed like any ABS package would. This includes downgrading with
-C
. - No Orphans - Aura provides several options for dealing with orphaned dependencies.
- Multilingual - Aura provides multiple output languages.
Installation
Binary Package
The easiest way to install aura without having to worry about Haskell dependencies is via the prebuilt AUR binary package: aura-binAUR.
Source Package
Aura requires the following dependencies to build:
community/haskell-core dependencies
- ghc
- haskell-regex-base
- haskell-parsec
- haskell-sybAUR
- haskell-mtl
- haskell-jsonAUR
- haskell-temporaryAUR
haskell-core/AUR dependencies
The Aura source package on AUR
Once all of these are installed, you can install auraAUR from the Arch User Repository.
Aura-unique Operators
See the aura man page for more detailed descriptions.
-
-A
- Perform actions involving the AUR. Default action builds and installs AUR packages. -
-B
- Manage the saving and restoring of the global package state. Default action stores a record of all installed packages. -
-C
- Perform actions involving the package cache. Default action downgrades packages. This is interactive. -
-L
- Perform actions involving the pacman log. Default action opens the log for read-only viewing. -
-M
- Perform actions involving the ABS tree. Default action manually builds from your local ABS tree. -
-O
- Perform actions involving orphaned dependencies. Default action lists orphaned dependencies.
Usage
Installing Packages
Install an AUR package:
$ aura -A package
Author's favourite. Upgrade all AUR packages, show PKGBUILD diffs, and remove unneeded makedeps after installation:
$ aura -Akua
Just sync the package database and upgrade all installed AUR packages:
$ aura -Ayu
Install with makepkg output unsuppressed:
$ aura -Ax package
Install and remove make dependencies afterwards:
$ aura -Aa package
Show a packages recent PKGBUILD changes when installing:
$ aura -Ak package
Look up information on an AUR package:
$ aura -Ai package
Checkout an AUR package's PKGBUILD:
$ aura -Ap package
Only download an AUR package's PKGBUILD:
$ aura -Ap package > PKGBUILD
Search the AUR with a keyword:
$ aura -As keyword
Saving/Restoring the global package state
Save the global package state:
$ aura -B
Restore a saved state. Downgrades upgraded packages, removes recently installed:
$ aura -Br
Remove old saved states. Saves number states and removes the rest.
$ aura -Bc number
Working with the package cache
Downgrade a package (this is interactive):
$ aura -C package
Search the package cache for package files via a regex:
$ aura -Cs regex
Backup the package cache:
$ aura -Cb /path/to/backup/location
Reduce the package cache to contain only the 5 most recent versions of each package file:
aura -Cc 5
Working with the Pacman Log
View the pacman log:
$ aura -L
View log info on a package:
$ aura -Li
Search the log via a regex:
$ aura -Ls regex
Working with Orphan Dependencies
Display orphans:
$ aura -O
Adopt a package (shorthand for -D --asexplicit):
$ aura -O package
Uninstall all orphans:
$ aura -Oj
Multilingual Support
Aura supports multiple output languages.
Language | Native Flag | English Flag |
---|---|---|
English (default) | --english |
--english
|
Japanese | --日本語 |
--japanese
|
Polish | --polski |
--polish
|
Croatian | --hrvatski |
--croatian
|
Swedish | --svenska |
--swedish
|
German | --deutsch |
--german
|
Spanish | --español |
--spanish
|
Portuguese | --português |
--portuguese
|
French | --français |
--french
|
Russian | --русский |
--russian
|
Italian | --italiano |
--italian
|
Serbian | --српски |
--serbian
|
Norwegian | --norsk |
--norwegian
|
Troubleshooting
Too many Haskell dependencies
There is a pre-built binary version of aura available as the aura-binAUR package in the AUR. No Haskell dependencies required.
Build failing at configuration step
If you get the following:
Configuring aura-1.x.x.x... Setup: At least the following dependencies are missing: regex-pcre-builtin -any
Then you need to rebuild the haskell-regex-pcre-builtinAUR AUR package, or install it out of [haskell-core]. This usually occurs after ghc upgrades, and has to do with ghc and all the haskell libraries being linked by special hash values for security purposes.
Update or Install failing while determining dependencies
If you get the following:
aura >> Determining dependencies... aura: fd:6: hGetContents: invalid argument (invalid byte sequence)
This is a known bug in 1.2.X but may affect later versions.
Ensure your locale is set properly by following this wiki page. Especially the English Language example. You may be required to use US.UTF-8.
Check your locale settings with
$ locale
and double check that LANG is the same as what is in /etc/locale.gen. If the problem persists try setting LC_ALL to the same thing as LANG. For example:
$ export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
Auto-prompt for sudo
Aura will not prompt for elevated privileges by default. If you'd like it do so (like some other AUR helpers) you can write a wrapper script to re-try aura with sudo when needed. The following creates a function a
that wraps aura
:
function a(){ AURA="$(aura "$@")" if echo "$AURA" | grep -q '^aura >>= .*You have to use `.*sudo.*` for that.*$' then sudo aura "$@" else echo "$AURA" fi }
Either add this function to your corresponding rc/profile or as a stand-alone script on your PATH.
Searching both Repos and AUR simultaneously
If you want to search the official repositories and the AUR with one command you can do that with a simple bash function. Put the following in your ~/.bashrc:
function search() { aura -Ss $@; aura -As $@; }
Here is a fish shell version:
function search aura -Ss $argv aura -As $argv end
Long compression time
If you want to install packages faster you can change compression method, or completely disable compression. To disable compression set "PKGEXT" to ".pkg.tar" in /etc/makepkg.conf.