this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2026
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    huh. didn't expect that (lemmy.world)
    submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by MousePotatoDoesStuff@lemmy.world to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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    DISCLAIMER: Arch Linux is not a beginner friendly distribution, and this is not a recommendation or good practice.

    I know how to use pacman -S. I have yet to experience a Discover related issue after months of use.

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    [–] Twongo@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

    why do people get intimidated by installing an arch package?

    i recently wanted to play morrowind and i use the terminal like a search engine for programs. i just typed "yay openmw" and voila it was there, checked in the aur if the package is clean and installed it by clicking enter 3 times.

    and i thout "yay ^_^ that was easy! :3", got off a ship in seyda neen and killed fargoth with my bare fists as soon as i locked eyes with him.

    [–] militaryintelligence@lemmy.world 2 points 21 hours ago

    Stand up, there you go. You were dreaming. What's your name?

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    [–] one_knight_scripting@lemmy.world 1 points 21 hours ago

    I had issues with btrfs-assistant. It's a permissions thing, tho. Might work if I added myself as an administrator, but I like the security of needing sudo, so pacman version it is.

    [–] mrcleanup@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

    Pamac is great too, and it can run all your updates at shutdown.

    [–] Fokeu@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

    sudo pacman -S (name), far easier than any gui in my opinion.

    [–] dismay3915@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

    Pacman -Syu java

    Windows users : 😨😨😰

    [–] bequirtle@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (7 children)

    IME, KDE Discover and similar app stores are so unreliable, telling beginners to use them is akin to harmful misinformation

    If you need a GUI software manager, my suggestion is to not use arch

    [–] ikon106@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

    Octopi is a pretty great GUI software manager

    [–] SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org 6 points 2 days ago

    Hard agree. I always struggled when using Discover, as a Beginner. Don't know if I could make it work now as a more experienced user, Because I don't use it and don't have a need to. Learning how to use 'pacman -S $pkg_name' was super simple and is very fast. Sure I don't have a nice GUI, that lets me browse what apps are there to be installed, but I have a webbrowser for that.

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    [–] Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de 61 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (5 children)

    It should be β€œyay [wanted program]” instead of β€œKDE discovery” in my opinion

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    [–] Speiser0@feddit.org 33 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    Installing something on arch is easy imo. The CLI is simple and well enough documented, and the package build system is easy to use. For comparison with ubuntu: pacman -S name is not harder than apt install name. And try to install something on ubuntu if it's not in the official package repos.

    [–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    ubuntu: pacman -S name is not harder than apt install name.

    Eh, it's a teensy bit harder, since you have to remember what -S means, rather than the easy to remember and plain English 'install'. But, yeah, not much of a difference.

    And try to install something on ubuntu if it’s not in the official package repos.

    1: Go to that something's website.

    2: look for their download/install instructions page, scroll to Linux instructions if necessary.

    3: Install instructions for Debian/Ubuntu are usually the first one listed, and typically just consist of a few commands you can copy and paste over without modifying.

    It isn't particularly difficult in most cases.

    [–] Speiser0@feddit.org 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

    Eh, it’s a teensy bit harder, since you have to remember what -S means, rather than the easy to remember and plain English β€˜install’. But, yeah, not much of a difference.

    Thanks! I initially thought about writing this in my comment in parentheses, but then didn't do because it would've made the comment longer, and I'm not sure if other people want to read the pedantic truth anyways. I'm glad you filled this void.

    The instructions for installing on ubuntu only work because of ubuntu's popularity. Also if you can copy-paste commands, you can also just follow build instructions. In arch, these commands are in the PKGBUILD, you don't have to copy them manually. Plus you have the knowledge that you'll have something that you can also deinstall later. Applications' websites usually don't have uninstallation instructions.

    [–] OwOarchist@pawb.social 1 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

    I’m not sure if other people want to read the pedantic truth anyways. I’m glad you filled this void.

    Glad my pedantry could be of service, lol!

    The instructions for installing on ubuntu only work because of ubuntu’s popularity.

    True, but this is still a very real effect with real-world benefits.

    (And I wouldn't necessarily say it's just Ubuntu's popularity. More like, due to Debian and Debian derivatives' popularity, of which Ubuntu is one. Since there are so many popular distros out there that are Debian-based where Debian-style install instructions will work (and quite a few people running Debian itself), it makes sense to give Debian-style install instructions first.)

    Also if you can copy-paste commands, you can also just follow build instructions.

    In my experience, not so much.

    Because even if you follow the instructions exactly, you'll always run into some problem due to your build environment not being quite identical to the developer's build environment, some library being half a version number off, and then cmake fails with a cryptic error message. So then you downgrade that library to the older version and try again, and this time it fails with a different cryptic error message that you can't make any sense of at all this time, or the compiler quits because it says the code is formatted improperly on line 1437 and now you're left wondering whether it's an issue with your compiler or whether you should go in and edit the source code yourself to try and fix that supposed formatting error...

    I don't know... I've tried this approach a few times -- usually as a desperate last resort -- and it never seems to actually work. In theory, it should. In practice ... good fucking luck.

    [–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

    4: those commands were written for previous version of Ubuntu and now dependency tree doesn't compute, also one of the commands is to add their custom repo, and you don't have keys for it so it doesn't work anyway. You try to remove the bad repo and now your apt is all fucked. You regenerate your repo list, googled the package and your version name, random stackexchage page gave you their live repo, but it needs a newer version of a library that incompatible with 54 of something that you already have. You learn about snap, installed 43Gb of something, it exists but still doesn't really work because package maintaiers didn't actually move it to snap, it was someone else. By this point you copy-pasted so many commands into your terminal you afraid it gained sentience. You call your more computer literate friend, he starts saying something about incompatible dependancies, containers, and you don't really understand much. By the end, you decide that you didn't actually want the software.
    Later you discover that your sound doesn't work anymore, and there is an error when you reboot.

    Good ending: you installed Arch, installed yay and instead of remembering unmemorable -S you just do yay package_name and you're very happy with your choices.

    [–] Speiser0@feddit.org 1 points 7 hours ago

    Always read the PKGBUILD before running makepkg!

    [–] texture@lemmy.world 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

    yay chrome, enter, 1, enter

    much easier than discover

    [–] Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

    That's not easier, maybe quicker though.

    [–] texture@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

    its easier once you know how, but i see what youre saying

    [–] humanamerican@lemmy.zip 32 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    Did pacman get packagekit support or are we just talking about flatpaks here?

    [–] Saapas@piefed.zip 47 points 2 days ago (6 children)

    Arch Wiki has still this warning

    Warning

    As explained in a GitHub comment by a Package Maintainer, "Handling system packages via packagekit is just fundamentally incompatible with our high-maintenance rolling release distro, where any update might leave the system in an unbootable or otherwise unusable state if the user does not take care reading pacman's logs or merging pacnew files before rebooting."

    [–] humanamerican@lemmy.zip 14 points 2 days ago (5 children)

    So its less about lack of packagekit support in pacman and more about lack of manual intervention features in GUI software managers?

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    [–] Anafabula@discuss.tchncs.de 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

    It has been working for a while, but it's not recommended

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    [–] ekZepp@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    Yay -S "Am I a joke for you?"

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    [–] Brokkr@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (12 children)

    I'm not an expert, but I thought on Arch you are specifically not supposed to use the discover store because it can cause partial updates which can in turn cause major problems.

    However, the point still stands, pacman and the AUR are easy and have nearly everything.

    [–] anyhow2503@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago (4 children)

    The AUR is a great resource but it's also being sold as a package repository users don't need to actively think about or understand. I honestly think malware is going to be much more common on the AUR if we aren't careful.

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