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!
only other repository that’s on the scale of AUR is the Nix repository – more packages and more up-to-date packages
(and you can install the Nix package manager on whatever OS without having to replace your OS with NixOS)
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.
Solid point!
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.
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 (editingconfiguration.nix), or trying out a temporary install (nix-shell) – ex. installing Firefox ESR on a non-NixOS system would benix-env -iA nixpkgs.firefox-esrthe 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
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