How to remove AUR packages? Are they good to have, are they a burden to keep?

I thought there would be a big update after Manjaro install. I did not find a big one like I was expecting, and used a AUR command and I think it installed a 1.7g Arch package. (don’t know zsh konsole very well, I am new to Manjaro) I would like to uninstall this package, if it is not needed. (I don’t know the package name I want to remove) I’m thinking of using this cmd … pacman -R (package name) … Is it safe to keep? Is it safe to remove? EDIT:(summation after) I got confused by the sudo pacman -Syu & -Ssyu not doing a large upgrade after a fresh install. It did do the upgrade in the terminal correctly. I thought that a update was triggered in konsole by sudo pamac upgrade aur; but there are no packages there to upgrade. Now I have a better understanding about, updating, pacman, yay, aur, and wiki, thank you.

I tried to read this really hard…at start i thought you should be better to stick to windows…
I have no idea what you want to do…you too :slight_smile:
Yay is an aur helper. You can install or deinstall at will. But first learn what packages and AUR is.

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yay is not 1.7 GiB.

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The profile says using linux for 2 years, but the difference between installing a single package and doing a full system update seems not very clear.

I’m trying to figure out the AUR package name(s).

well there was some confusion jumping from bash to zsh. I was not used to installing using zsh. I should of been more clear. Maybe my question was a bad idea.

I want to (maybe) uninstall a AUR package, but I don’t know the name of the package. I would like to know if it is worth keeping and if it would create any troubles with kernel upgrades and shim with nvidia proprietary.

I was trying to figure out using zsh cmds, I have been using bash.

The used shell has nothing to do with updates, or aur helpers, or video drivers.
I think you should go back to basics. Maybe with ubuntu.

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Your gracious suggestion has been noted.

As @Teo says, the shell you use doesn’t have anything to do with package management. The various package managers and AUR helpers are all external executables with their own options.

Furthermore, there isn’t all that much of a difference in day-to-day usage between bash and zsh — both are Bourne-compatible — but if you really want to use bash, then you can temporarily invoke it by simply typing bash on the command line and hitting Enter — in which case it’ll be run as a subshell of your main shell — or by issuing the command… :point_down:

exec zsh

… in which case bash will take over the process ID of the running zsh for that session.

If you want to permanently switch to bash, then all depends on what desktop environment you’re using, because the way zsh is implemented as the default depends on the way the terminal emulators in the different desktop environments have been configured. In Plasma for instance, it is done by way of a built-in Konsole profile. In other environments, you may be able to switch by way of the chsh command.

As for the large package you’re talking of, would it happen to be ceph-libs? If so, that’s a package that used to be in the repositories but was then dropped to the AUR, with as a result that if you still have it installed, your machine will be compiling for a long time and pulling in all kinds of build-time dependencies, while in the end, you most likely don’t need any of it. So if it really is that package, then you can safely remove it.

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If you want to learn, start by reading the wiki and the tutorial section on the forum.

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If you use pamac it has an AUR tab in preferences, but you have to enable it, having done this it will show all installed AUR packages under the installed tab.

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I’m not frustrated or arrogant, I simply asked a question about something I did not exactly understand which is why the forum exist. If I’m such a bother to you, you are more than welcome to not help me or participate in this discussion. I would actually prefer that, you have been very nasty.

Thank you for teaching me and helping me to understand this new system.

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This helped a lot, thanks.

HI, I know I am late to this, but if you want to do this via the command line way to list all the packages that you grabbed from AUR, you can fire up a terminal and type in

pacman -Qm
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OP wants to learn, lets help him out instead of pushing him away ok?

Using Manjaro is NOT the same as using f ex a debian system. There are clear similarities but one big difference is the availablility of AUR and that Manjaro is arch based and a rolling release.

In Manjaro you have access to AUR, but it is NOT RECOMMENDED to use, things can become way more complicated to keep system from “not breaking”. That is why a lot of users here are a bit against you using that in the first place, it seems you lack knowledge on how these things work.

If you have used a debian based system, you use sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt upgrade to update your system. On Manjaro you use pamac (the add/remove application on your desktop) OR pacman.
This can be confusing in the beginning, but in reality both these applications are used to keep the same programs up to date. In reality pamac (Manjaros program) uses pacman to actually run the updates.

When it comes to AUR, pacman can NOT be used to install/remove packages, but you CAN use pamac.

I won’t go deeper into this, but using this knowledge, start searching the forum or the wikis. There are f ex other applications like yay that can be used to install/update/remove from the AUR. You should be on the unstable branch rather than the stable etc.

Since you figured out you can access the AUR packages in the GUI via pamac (add/remove programs) I suggest you do that and then stay away from AUR until you understand what you are doing (not to sound patronizing).
IMHO IF you are to use AUR, you should do it in the terminal, not in the gui.

I encourage you to keep learning!

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Indeed - you can go crazy and do this:

pacman -Qqet | grep -v "$(pacman -Qqg)" | grep -v "$(pacman -Qqm)" > ~/Desktop/pacman.txt
pacman -Qm > ~/Desktop/AUR.txt

As a bash script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Create lists of Pacman and AUR packages on the desktop.
#
pacman -Qqet | grep -v "$(pacman -Qqg)" | grep -v "$(pacman -Qqm)" > ~/Desktop/pacman.txt && pacman -Qm > ~/Desktop/AUR.txt

Save as 'package lists` in your $PATH and launch it from the menu.

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Amazing lesson, thank you so much.

Thank you, I can see the Pacman now.

I admire that, thank you for teaching.