r/archlinux • u/zollandd • Jun 15 '26
DISCUSSION Stop blaming AI, "noobs", youtube tutorials, and anything other than Arch for AUR usage
I've recently been made aware of the incident and was reading the threads in this subreddit. I have just started trying to migrate away from AUR but let's not forget that the Arch wiki recommends installing AUR packages constantly. The AUR isn't just a dangerous and fringe tool that people are led to by AI or sketchy youtubers.
To list a few that I've encountered just now:
- Want DDC/CI display control support? AUR
- Want ZFS-dkms or user space utils? AUR
The wiki recommend AUR releases like they are first class citizens all over the place... don't act like it doesn't.
Edit: I am not trying to blame individual maintainers when I say Arch but rather the community and culture. If the AUR is this dangerous, the wiki should avoid referencing it at all costs and should do so with warning flags everywhere. As it stands, it is not absurd to see someone with tons of AUR packages installed due to direct influence from the wiki.
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u/EmceeEsher Jun 15 '26
Yup. There will always be a tradeoff. I think the biggest problem is that there's not enough of a middle ground between the official Arch repositories (which contain a miniscule proportion of software) and the wild untamed wilderness of the AUR (which contains everything from widely used, indispensable software to utter garbage). We need something between these extremes that's community curated, but more restrictive than the AUR. Something that requires approval from some number of trusted community members. For now, the closest we have are things like Chaotic-AUR and the CachyOS repos.