<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
  <meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
 http-equiv="content-type">
  <title>AUR Beta</title>
</head>
<body>
<h2>Arch User Repository (AUR) Beta Test</h2>
The Arch User Repository (AUR) is ready for beta testing. This release
does not contain every feature everyone wanted, but at this stage we
think we've implemented the most important features, and we need you to
help us make sure they are working properly and reliably. A few months
after the initial release, we'll start to prioritize
features necessary for the next revision. We'll weigh the suggestions
given and decide what additional features to add.<br>
<h3><a href="http://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=2">Leave your feedback in Flyspray!</a></h3>
<h3>Audience</h3>
For this test, we are not using the real Arch servers or
network bandwidth. As a result, you will find that
bandwidth will be somewhat limited. Please don't upload many large
packages, except where doing so helps to test a particular feature (or
misfeature) of the system.<br>
<br>
We expect this beta testing to be performed by TUs and a
handful of other users who are interested enough to subscribe to the TU
mailing list or otherwise seek out this information. <span
 style="font-weight: bold;">Please do not advertise this beta site
information widely; we will not have the network
bandwidth to sustain a high load on the test platform and will need to
cut the beta short.</span>
Once the beta is over, the real AUR will be hosted on the main Arch
Linux
servers and will be able to handle the greater demands of the whole
community.<br>
<br>
<h3>Introduction to the AUR<br>
</h3>
The AUR is a place for community members and TUs (Trusted Users) to
work together to bring new packages to Arch Linux users. A TU is a
special community member who has earned the trust of the core
Arch developers and who wants to help build, test, and debug new Arch
packages contributed by members of the community. Only a TU can build a
binary package and add it to the AUR
repository, which is then accessible via pacman -S.<br>
<span style="font-weight: bold;"><br>
</span>Any community member may upload new PKGBUILD directory tarballs
from the AUR
web interface. Those packages will appear in the "Unsupported"
repository, and
can be viewed and built by other community members, even though they
are not yet available in binary form via pacman -S.<br>
<br>
The AUR system
incorporates a voting system which allows members to vote for the
packages in "Unsupported" that they think are useful or interesting. If
a TU thinks a package is interesting or has received enough votes,
the TU may choose to adopt the package. The TU builds the package,
performs some rudimentary testing, and adds it
to the AUR repository, where it can be accessed by any user subscribing
to the AUR repository by running pacman -S. From that point on, the TU
will maintain the
package in the AUR repository, and all updates for the package must go
through a TU.<br>
<br>
If a package gets enough votes or is otherwise deemed interesting by
the core Arch development team, the package may be
promoted into the extra or current repository. At that point, the
package is removed from the AUR and is maintained by the core
developers. Alternately, if a TU loses interest in a package, the TU
may abandon the package or remove it from the AUR repository altogether.<br>
<br>
<h3>Feedback</h3>
The most important part of this beta test is your feedback. There is a <a
 href="http://bugs.archlinux.org/index.php?tasks=all&amp;project=2">project
set up in Flyspray</a> for the AUR. Please leave your feedback there.
Though it will be tempting to email the AUR developers, remember that
they will get a lot of email and they won't be able to find yours later
when they're going through the feedback. If you put your bugs,
comments, and suggestions in Flyspray, they are guaranteed not to get
lost.<br>
<br>
Flyspray is incredibly easy to use. Take a moment to create an account
as soon as you can.<br>
<br>
<h3>Schedule</h3>
The AUR beta is starts now, around February 23. It should run until
about the first week in March. At that point, it will look at the remaining
problems, fix them, and launch the AUR sometime in mid-to-late March on the
production servers.<br>
<h3>Using the AUR Repository</h3>
To access the AUR repository from pacman, add the following to your
pacman.conf:<br>
<br>
<code>[aur]<br>
Server = ftp://subzero.elys.com/arch/aur</code><br>
<br>
<h3>What The AUR Means to a Community Member</h3>
If you're an Arch Linux community member, the AUR represents a giant
step forward in your ability to effectively contribute your work in
building Arch packages to the rest of the Arch Linux community. The
following steps must ye take to get started:<br>
<ol>
  <li>Set yourself up to access the AUR repository, if desired, by
adding the above lines to your pacman.conf.<br>
  </li>
  <li>Visit the <a href="https://subzero.elys.com">AUR Beta Site</a>.</li>
  <li>Create a new user account.</li>
  <li>Begin uploading packages you have created. You should upload a
.tar.gz file containing the PKGBUILD directory. You should not include
a binary package file in your upload, just the PKGBUILD and related
necessary files for building the package. (Imagine your package had
been accepted into current or extra; we want just the files that would
be fetched by abs in /var/abs.)<br>
  </li>
  <li>Review the other packages in the repository, and vote for the
ones you find most interesting. If you're especially interested, browse
the package contents and build other packages yourself.</li>
</ol>
<h3>What The AUR Means to a Trusted User (TU) or an Arch Developer<br>
</h3>
If you are an Arch Linux Trusted User (TU) or an Arch developer, and
you want to get started on the beta, do the following:<br>
<ol>
  <li>Set your machine up to access the AUR repository.</li>
  <li>Run <code>pacman -S tupkg</code> to download the TU package
download tool.<br>
  </li>
  <li>Visit the <a href="https://subzero.elys.com">AUR Beta Site</a>.</li>
  <li>Create a new user account, using your usual user id.<br>
  </li>
  <li>Email Paul (paul at mattal dot com) and ask to have your login
modified to have TU/developer status.<br>
This
step is necessary so we can make sure that the right people are getting
the right access. We will migrate this information to the production
system, so you won't have to do it again.<br>
  </li>
  <li>Check out the CVS tree for the AUR repository. To do this,
execute the following commands:<br>
    <br>
    <code>export
CVSROOT=":pserver:&lt;userid&gt;@cvs.archlinux.org:/home/cvs-aur-test"<br>
cvs login<br>
cvs co aur-test</code><br>
    <br>
If you're
a TU, you should already have an account in this new
repository. If you are a developer, email Jason (jason at archlinux dot
org) and he'll set up access for you.<br>
  </li>
  <li>Build binary packages for things you wish to place in the AUR,
and add the PKGBUILD and accompanying necessary files to the CVS
repository. You can do this with:<br>
    <br>
    <code>cvs add &lt;directory&gt;<br>
cd &lt;directory&gt;<br>
cvs add PKGBUILD<br>
.<br>
.<br>
cvs commit</code><br>
    <br>
  </li>
  <li>Upload the binary packages using the "tupkg" tool. Run<span
 style="font-family: monospace;">:<br>
    </span><code><br>
tupkg
--host
subzero.elys.com --user &lt;userid&gt; --password &lt;password&gt;
&lt;packagefile.pkg.tar.gz&gt;</code><br>
    <br>
Note that this is your <span style="font-weight: bold;">AUR login
password</span> -- the one you assign when you create your account, not
your CVS password, in case they are different.<br>
  </li>
  <li>Once your packages are uploaded successfully, tag the newly
created package files with the CURRENT tag in cvs. You can do this with:<br>
    <code><br>
cvs tag -cFR CURRENT &lt;newpackagebuilddir&gt;</code> <br>
    <br>
  </li>
  <li>In 5-10 minutes, the automated script will add them to the AUR
repository. Verify that they appear both in the web interface and
become
available via <code>pacman -Sy &lt;package&gt;</code> from the aur
repository.</li>
  <li>Select the newly added or updated package in the AUR web
interface and set yourself as the maintainer.<br>
  </li>
</ol>
</body>
</html>