Hey fellow Linux enthusiasts! I’ve been using Manjaro for a while now and have relied heavily on the AUR (Arch User Repository) for its extensive package collection. However, I’ve encountered a particular package that hasn’t seen updates in months, which has me exploring alternatives. Can anyone recommend an exhaustive package manager that’s as user-friendly and comprehensive as the AUR? I’d love to hear your suggestions and experiences with other package managers on Manjaro. Thanks in advance for your insights!

    • t0m5k1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The reason why people think nix has a larger repo is because nix has only 1 repo for everything, were arch has 3 main and 4 testing and then the aur. If arch lumped everything into one repo it too could say it has 80k+ packages.

    • penquin@lemmy.kde.social
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      1 year ago

      So let’s say I ran the multiuser command and installed the repo. How do I install packages after that? I’m assuming I won’t use pacman, and would have to use something from nix? Sorry if this sounds dumb, I’ve never tried nix and know nothing about it.

      • cerement@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        heads up: I don’t have any experience with either the package manager or NixOS, but I’ve been looking over both because I like both the idea of a declarative system (everything defined by one master config file) and an immutable system (harder to break things)

        for just using the package manager – you can use their online package search which will give you options for installing using the package manager (nix-env), installing under NixOS (editing configuration.nix), or trying out a temporary install (nix-shell) – ex. installing Firefox ESR on a non-NixOS system would be nix-env -iA nixpkgs.firefox-esr

        the full manual for the package manager is also online – but a big heads up, if you’re planning on doing anything beyond just installing/removing packages, things can get a little hairy – Nix uses their own functional programming language (also called Nix) to define/declare everything