For me, this tradeoff isn’t worth it. I didn’t switch to Linux so that I can waste time going to websites and clicking “download” to update my programs like a Windows user.
The pacman wrappers you mention are crazy, though.
For me, this tradeoff isn’t worth it. I didn’t switch to Linux so that I can waste time going to websites and clicking “download” to update my programs like a Windows user.
The pacman wrappers you mention are crazy, though.
I get it, but you only need to do that for the odd cases of packages not present in the official repo (not that common at all for me at least).
Also if the software is downloaded in the form of a git repo, you only needed to checkout the new tag and rebuild, don't need your browser at all.
You then get the advantage of the OS’s package manager accounting for everything, however. It’s quite nice to not wonder whether there’s random stateful detritus throughout your system and what it might be affecting. (OK, to be honest there still will be, but much less of it, and a greater part of it will be attributable.)
I think the existence of the AUR puts less pressure on the official repository to have all popular software.
I think it's also a bit of a testing ground for the main repos as well. I maintained the `ruby-build` AUR package for a couple of years after the previous maintainer wanted to step down, but they eventually added it to the main repos and now it's maintained by one of the official people. (I don't recall ever having to do more than paste in the new release tag into the PKGBUILD each time and then generate the new .SRCINFO and checksums in terms of actual maintenance, although I'd test locally first before pushing of course).