The AUR still has a lot of niche software that hasn’t been Flatpakked, but yeah. Flatpaks are way more convenient, especially for large software where AUR compilation can take a long time.
Main reason I like the AUR is for really niche packages that aren’t in any main repos. Smaller github projects, forks of main projects that fix bugs, basically anything that you would otherwise have to compile from source is on the AUR. And while you still might have to compile it, it’s all setup and managed for you, which I really like.
I admit AUR was a huge reason why I made the move to Arch. But with Flatpak gaining more and more traction, the benefits of AUR are shrinking fast.
The AUR still has a lot of niche software that hasn’t been Flatpakked, but yeah. Flatpaks are way more convenient, especially for large software where AUR compilation can take a long time.
The other day I died of old age compiling Librewolf from the AUR
What’s wrong with librewolf-bin? Would you choose the Flatpack or the bin from the AUR?
I ended up going with librewolf-bin. The flatpak version had some issues for me because my configs are a spaghetti nightmare
Install librewolf-bin
Flatpack vs AUR comparison
Chatgpt didn’t do a great job of contrasting them. Flatpak is also transparent
I do really like AUR, but agree Flatpak is a good alternative. I can’t stand snap, snap packages just feel slower.
Main reason I like the AUR is for really niche packages that aren’t in any main repos. Smaller github projects, forks of main projects that fix bugs, basically anything that you would otherwise have to compile from source is on the AUR. And while you still might have to compile it, it’s all setup and managed for you, which I really like.