YAY, install packages from AUR repositories

YAY is a tool for Arch Linux to search packages in AUR (Arch Linux User Repository) repositories. These repositories are made to help users in need of pre-built packages, maintained by the community.

Useful for drivers of hardware or applications which are not in official Arch Linux repositories, the usage of AUR repositories is risky. Tests are done by users, reality may be different and may be not compatible with your hardware.

To do so, install needed dependencies, clone the repository and start the compilation :

sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel

# Clone and build (WITHOUT sudo!)
cd /tmp && git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay && makepkg -si

⚠️ SECURITY WARNING: Never use sudo to compile AUR packages! Running sudo makepkg executes untrusted code as root.

Alternative: YAY Binary (recommended)#

If you don’t want to compile YAY yourself, use the pre-compiled version:

sudo pacman -S --needed git base-devel
cd /tmp && git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay-bin.git
cd yay-bin && makepkg -si

Commands of yay are the same as pacman. Complete list of commands and attributes can be shown with yay --help.

YAY, some usage tips#

Install an application with yay#

Use yay like pacman ! For example, to install VSCodium, just do $ yay -S vscodium-bin.

Some packages contain every source to generate a binary, like Brave browser. If you install the package brave, you will clone every source (more than 10 GB !) ! Remember to check the description of the package you want to install. In general, you can install the package without dependencies when you select the package named with .-bin. For Brave (example), use $ yay -S brave-bin.

Commands to remember :

• Search a package: yay -Ss package_name
• Install a package: yay -S package_name
• List every installed packages: yay -Q
• Delete a package: yay -R package_name
• Update the whole system: yay (without arguments)

Be sure to use official Arch Linux repositories with pacman. Yay needs to be the last solution when you don’t find the needed package in official repositories.