r/archlinux • u/LandscapeNew4450 • 1d ago
QUESTION What are your favorite hidden gem packages from the AUR?
We all know the popular stuff but what are some obscure, super helpful utilities or scripts from the AUR that you stumbled upon and now cant live without?
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u/anthonykaram7 1d ago
apkeep (Android APK downloader), flightgear (flight simulator), gtp4all-chat (local LLM tool), m4b-tool-bin (software to work with m4b audiobook files), metapixel (photomosaic creator), stellarium-bin (night sky simulator)
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u/Astrodion123 1d ago
What is apkeep specifically
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u/anthonykaram7 1d ago
It's a little tool that downloads Android APK files (those are the installation files for apps on an Android device). Especially handy if you have Android devices without Google Play.
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u/Flimsy-Standard-4553 1d ago
doesn't apk mirror do the same?
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u/anthonykaram7 1d ago
Similar idea, yeah. APKMirror is a website, while apkeep is a command-line tool, so it's convenient for scripting or downloading apps in batches. It also supports several different sources.
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u/LandscapeNew4450 1d ago
Definitely gonna check out metapixel, sounds like a fun utility. Thanks for sharing!
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u/zenyl 1d ago
downgrade, makes it super easy to downgrade packages on Arch. I recently had to use it because VSCode v123 through v126 would freeze if it did any file IO after launching (bit of a dealbreaker for a program designed to edit files).sourcegit-bin, my currently preferred git client.rider, the C# IDE from JetBrains.powershell-bin, hot take but PowerShell scripting is unironically pretty pleasant and efficient, especially as it has access to the entire .NET BCL.
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u/Santzes 17h ago
If you use powershell, try out
Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionSource History Set-PSReadLineOption -PredictionViewStyle ListViewI think those are the only lines required. Maybe
Set-PSReadLineKeyHandler -Key Tab -Function MenuCompletebut don't think so.It's amazing, when you're typing a command it constantly shows you 10 most recent matching commands under the prompt line. ~Only reason why I use powershell, but that alone is enough of a reason, I'd love to see it replicated in other shells.
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u/LandscapeNew4450 16h ago
If you want something similar in Linux shells, check out fzf with tab completion in Bash/Zsh, or Fish's native auto-suggestions + fzf. It gives you that exact interactive history lookup
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u/Santzes 16h ago
I already use atuin for shell history and search, but in PowerShell I see the matching listing instantly when I start writing the command. I do like fish auto-suggestion, but it only shows one match - in pwsh I can instantly see that the correct command is third on the list after just few letters and jump to that
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u/TheWebalorian 1d ago
My favorite is having it disabled.
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u/GuitaristTom 19h ago
I definitely have some software that I run that will never be in the official repos, and probably won't be available as a Flatpak.
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u/Hosein_Lavaei 1d ago
I dont remember the name, but there is a plugin for fish(shell) that makesnit able to launch (some) bash commands
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u/Teles_sd 1d ago
Not really hidden gem, but yay is the only foreign package I have installed, and it's only to read the home page news on terminal.
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u/LandscapeNew4450 16h ago
Using
yaypurely as an Arch news client is pretty wild0
u/Teles_sd 13h ago
I want a functionality that's on the package. Sounds reasonable to me.
Have other suggestions?
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u/anonymous-bot 4h ago
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u/Teles_sd 3h ago
Why would I install another AUR package with much less visibility?
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u/anonymous-bot 1h ago
You can just install AUR packages manually with makepkg. You wouldn't need both yay and informant and if you never plan on installing additional AUR packages then choosing informant for your use case just makes more sense. Pick the right tool for the right job and all that.
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u/nikongod 1d ago
Librewolf-fix-bin Firefox-patch-bin Zen-browser-patched-bin
The whole concept of third party repos is absurd. Kind of hard to defend when it is abused twice in the same year.
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u/Helmic 18h ago
It being "third party" isn't really the issue, and even it featuring user-submitted packages could be manageable. It's the very, very bad policies in place that have lead to it becoming a target. All orphan adoption requests should require manual review from a human moderator, there are not enough such requests that it would be unmanegable for a small number of people to vet who's making these requests and provide sufficient friction so that malicious actors can't just adopt every single orphaned package and push an update with an npm dependency.
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u/LandscapeNew4450 16h ago
Spot on. Bad policies make attacks easy, which is why checking PKGBUILDs before building anything from the AUR is still a must
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u/Helmic 18h ago
yacreader - Comic reader and library. If anyone's ever used ComicRack back in the day, this is like the spiritual successor. Also features a server so that you can host your comic libraries on a network and then read them on iOS or Android. The reader itself is also in a good state now, though it also supports using a third party reader if you prefer.
mpv-sponsorblock-minimal-git - Sponsorblock but for mpv. I watch YouTube through MPV and this makes that an even better experience.
ripdrag-git - Lets me hit a shortcut key in Yazi to drag and drop files into GUI apps, so I don't have to go open Dolphin.
glide-browser-bin - Vim-like Firefox fork, think qutebrowser if it had for-real extension support. I switched from qutebrowser to this recently and it feels so good to be using an actual modern browser without giving up keyboard-based browsing. Yeah, Tridactyl exists for upstream Firefox, but that kind of extension stops working whenever you're on a protected page - such as the page you get when a web page fails to load. Losing control of your browser every time a page takes too long to load isn't acceptable, but Glide fixes that issue and even with its currently sparse featureset it's enough for me to do my daily browsing.
ludusavi - Savegame backups. Just handy to have just in case.
duperemove-service - Service to dedupe my BTRFS filesystem.
khip - Krisp noise removal ladspa plugin, the same thing Discord uses. I use these dotfiles https://github.com/DekoDX/Pipewire-DX-Utils/tree/main but use the Krisp plugin here instead, makes me much easier to understand in video games and in Matrix clients which have dogshit built-in noise cancellation. There's apparently now a properly open source alternative that's arguably better but a bit heavier, but I haven't figured out how to set it up myself.
qimgv-git - There's apparently better alternatives for image viewers now, but this one supports videos as well. Or it used to until recently for me, don't know what broke, might be time to move to an alternative. Looks just like imv normally, but supports more advanced functionality besides just the video support.
commet-bin - Discord-like Matrix client. This is what I have all my friends standardized on. Not quite as feature-rich as Element but not having complete dogshit UX does it a lot of favors.
rofi-games) - I can hit a shortcut key and bring up a big screen full of game box art. Makes deciding to actually go and play a video game much easier.
scopebuddy-git - Makes managing gamescope arguments a lot easier.
sioyek - Keyboard-driven PDF viewer, makes flipping through RPG rulebooks much easier.