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Re: [Idea] Debian User Repository? (Not simply mimicing AUR)




On 07.04.19 17:40, gregor herrmann wrote:
I'm one of those people.
And I still don't know what "an AUR-like service" is, or what
"packaging scripts" are.

After reading the intro at
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_User_Repository I guess,
translated to Debian terms, we are talking about user-provided source
packages?
Cheers,
gregor

Maybe a simple example of how things could work - the AUR consists of several things

* the website https://aur.archlinux.org/
* the git repo
* some not official (and not really needed) helper scripts

The wiki put it in the best possible way:

Users can search and download PKGBUILDs from the AUR Web Interface. These PKGBUILDs can be built into installable packages using makepkg, then installed using pacman.

Let's take lxqt-about as example: It is both in the regular archlinux repository and in the AUR:

* https://www.archlinux.de/packages/community/x86_64/lxqt-about
* https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/lxqt-about-git/

So - what is the difference in this case: the community repository points to the release, the AUR package points to git master. The packaging consits only of the PKGBUILD aka the "build script". Thats all.

One can download these scripts and build  with a simple `makepkg`.
After building the package one can install the local packate with pacman:
* Repo: pacman -S lxqt-about
* local: pacman -U lxqt-about*tar.xz

And thats the whole magic - the only thing that the arch guys host is the PKGBUILD, maybe some patches and install instructions. So they don't have to care about any licensing or limitations - they only host the receipe.

For debian it could work the same way - just host the debian dir and be done with. Iirc the kde team work this way, they have only the debian dir in salsa. With a modified watch file it should be possible to get any source one want to. So the "only" thing needed is the infrastructure to host and maintain these repos. The rest is up to the user and a fundamental different approach as launchpad and ppa's.

Cheers Alf

PS: Please don't hit/yell at me if i've overly simplified some things. :)


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