Official Repositories
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- As there is much confusion about the official repositories, this wiki tries to explain their meaning:
Contents |
[edit] Historical background
Most of the repository splits are for historical reasons. Originally, when this distro was used by very few users, there was only one repository, which is now [core] -- it used to be called [official]. This repository basically contains Judd's preferred applications, though that is not quite the case now. It is designed to contain one of each "type" of program -- one DE, one major browser, etc.
There were users back then that didn't like Judd's selection, so since ABS is so easy to use, they created packages of their own. These packages went into a repository called [unofficial], and were maintained by developers other than Judd. Eventually, the two repositories were both considered equally supported by the developers, so the names [official] and [unofficial] didn't apply anymore. They were renamed to [current] and [extra] around version 0.5. Shortly after the 2007.8.1 release, [current] was renamed [core] in order to prevent confusion over what exactly it contains. The repositories are now pretty much equal in the eyes of the developers and the community, but [core] has some differences, the main one being that packages for Install CD and release snapshots are taken only of [core]. This repository still gives a complete linux system, but it may not be the linux system you want.
Now, sometime around 0.5 or 0.6, they found there were a lot of packages that the developers didn't want to maintain. One of the developers (Xentac) set up the "Trusted User Repositories", which were basically unofficial repositories in which trusted users could place packages they have created. There was a [staging] repository where packages could be promoted into the official repositories by one of the Arch Linux developers, but other than this, the developers and trusted users were more or less distinct.
This worked for a while, but not when trusted users got bored with their repositories and not when untrusted users wanted to share their own packages. This led to the development of the AUR. The TUs were conglomerated into a more closely knit group, and they now collectively maintain the [community] repository. The Trusted Users are still a separate group from the Arch Linux developers, and there isn't a lot of communication between them. However, popular packages are still promoted from [community] to [extra] on occasion. The AUR also supports allowing untrusted users to submit PKGBUILDs for other users to use if they wish. These packages are unsupported, and the packages are sometimes called the [unsupported] repository, though since no binary packages are distributed, unsupported isn't really a repository. Trusted users can adopt packages from unsupported into [community] at their discretion, whether it is because the package is popular or because they are interested in maintaining it.
[edit] List of repositories
[edit] [core]
The [core] repository can be found in core/os/i686 or core/os/x86_64 on your favorite mirror. It contains Arch core packages and some additional software, and will provide you with a fully functional base system.
The installation cd simply contains an installer script, and a snapshot of the core repository.
[edit] [extra]
The [extra] repository can be found in extra/os/i686 or extra/os/x86_64 on your favorite mirror. It contains all packages that don't fit in [core]
Example: X.org, window managers, web servers, media players, languages like Python, Ruby and Perl, and a lot more.
[edit] [unstable]
The [unstable] repository has now been deprecated and does not contain any packages.
[edit] [testing]
The [testing] repository can be found in testing/os/i686 on your favorite mirror. [testing] is special. It contains packages that are candidates for the [core] or [extra] repositories. New packages go into [testing] if:
- they are expected to break something on update and need to be tested first
- they require other packages to be rebuilt. In this case, all packages that need to be rebuilt are put into [testing] first and when all rebuilds are done, they are moved back to the other repositories.
[testing] is the only repository that can have name collisions with any of the other official repositories. If enabled, it has to be the first repo listed in your pacman.conf file.
Be careful when enabling [testing]. Your system may be broken after you update with [testing] enabled. Only experienced users should use it.
[edit] [community]
The [community] repository can be found in community/os/i686 or community/os/x86_64 on your favorite mirror. It is maintained by the Trusted Users (TUs) and is part of the Arch User Repository (AUR). It contains packages from the AUR that have enough votes and were adopted by a TU.
The [community] repository has only recently become available for x86_64, so don't expect to find many packages in there.
[edit] [unsupported]
The [unsupported] repository is not really a repository. Unlike the other repositories, it does not provide binary packages. It is used to refer to the collection of PKGBUILDs in AUR which are submitted by regular users, thus the [unsupported] repository is unofficial.