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Yaourt is a great tool for easily installing packages from the Arch User Repository. This is a simple guide for installing and basic usage of yaourt.

Prepare the Environment¶

• Make sure the system is up to date:
  

  pacman -Syu
  

• Install the base-devel, sudo, and wget packages:
  

  pacman -S base-devel wget rsync sudo
  

• Add the sudo group:
  

  groupadd sudo
  

• Edit the sudo file:
  

  visudo
  

  • And uncomment the line for the sudo group
    

    %sudo    ALL=(ALL) ALL
    

• Makepkg will not work as root, so make an unprivileged user:
  

  useradd -m -g users -s /bin/bash bob
  

  • Add the user bob to the sudo group:
    

    usermod -aG sudo bob
    

Install yaourt¶

• Switch to the unprivileged user, bob:
  

  su - bob
  

• Download the packages for yaourt:
  

  cd /tmp
  wget https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/package-query.tar.gz && wget https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/yaourt.tar.gz
  tar xzf package-query.tar.gz
  tar xzf yaourt.tar.gz
  

  • Install package-query:
    

    cd package-query
    makepkg -csi
    

  • Install yaourt
    

    cd ../yaourt
    makepkg -csi
    

Using yaourt¶

• You can install packages (including AUR packages) with
  

  yaourt packagename
  

  • or
    

    yaourt -Sa packagename
    

• You can update your system including AUR packages with:
  

  yaourt -Syua
  

See the yaourt manual page for more information.

Examples¶

• Search and install:
  

  yaourt search pattern
  

• Sync database, upgrade packages, search the AUR and devel (all packages based on cvs, svn, git, bzr(...)-version) upgrades:
  

  yaourt -Syua --devel
  

• Build package from source:
  

  yaourt -Sb package
  

Resources¶

• https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/yaourt