Software management in Arch Linux is easy enough…

..But you'd probably want it to be even easier, right? There are all kinds of universal tools which allow for a range of software in distributor repositories to be obtained — GNOME Software, KDE Discover, ElementaryOS' App Centre; along with forks like Pop!_OS' Pop!_Shop, but if you are exploring the weird and wonderful world of Arch Linux, you may be interested in other solutions to avoid using the terminal and give yourself an indicator for when software is available.

The three solutions below are what you can use to not only manage software from repositories, but also from the AUR and if supported, other optional sources. The AUR support is important; you will want it for when building things outside of repositories.

Let's discuss the AUR a bit more…

The Arch User Repository is a place where third-party build files for specific software can be obtained. Where the repositories are the cathedral which has supported software every Arch user can install reliably, the AUR is the community bazaar down the way which has lesser-known or non-repository wares not always guaranteed to work without issues. That isn't to say you will encounter problems — few times had I ever encountered issues with building things from the AUR, and fewer times I've tossed my hands in the air giving up on something I wanted to try. Where there is a will, eventually there will be a way; and with so many options for package management, you will find a way to make what you need work.

AUR Installation methods

We're going to assume ATLauncher for this, since it's a neat piece of software. Along with actually building from the AUR, we can also use helpers; examples for which, of each are provided below:

• Self-building without tools (but using git)cd /tmp
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/atlauncher-bin
cd ./atlauncher-bin
makepkg -si

  This is a very simple example, using a piece of software that only relies on dependencies from enabled Arch Linux repositories. If other AUR software is required, you will see the build fail with missing dependencies you then need to build before this. -s fetches other repository packages as-required, -i installs it for you. Otherwise, if -i is excluded you would need to perform the following:
  
  sudo pacman -U ./atlauncher-bin*.tar.zst

  Globstars (wildcards, asterisks) work when globbing is enabled in your shell, and only for local packages. This will not work for software in repositories without extra work.

• Assisted building with yayyay -S atlauncher-bin

  You will be prompted to see code diffs and clean building if re-building, just say none (type  N ) for this and move it along.

• Assisted building with paruparu atlauncher-bin

  Nothing else is necessary to declare here, except for selecting whichever package is the most relevant (in most instances) but be aware that Paru is a very advanced helper with file mamager and editor integrations, where everything can be handled right in the terminal. None of such matters for the scope of this article.

AUR-capable graphical front-ends

Now you understand how the AUR stuff works, we can talk about some of these alternatives. With a base understanding of how to build software from the AUR using the terminal with an absolute bare minimum of effort (depending on how few AUR packages need to be built), you can decide for yourself after some experimenting what method you would like to use the most, which might matter depending on how often critical system changes you make trash your system. Needless to say; if your instance works now, don't mess with it any more than you have to. This goes for every Linux distribution under the sun, and to varying degrees even Windows.

With that said, you will still want to fetch select software from the AUR, and this is where graphical helpers may be a sufficient crutch for people with limited technical experience. Let's go through the motions together and enjoy the process;

• Octopi
  The easiest of choices, especially for EndeavourOS' default desktop; KDE Plasma. Based on Qt5 (and possibly in-future, Qt6) this utility provides a list of software, as Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint users may be familiar with using Synaptic Package Manager, but with the added advantage of alien technology.
  
  Click the alien emoji button to enable seeing software from the AUR, and you will be able to see what's at the bazaar outside the cathedral. It's in the repos, so it's blessed by the Arch software management team but the system tray utility prompting whether updates exist needs to come from outside there. As follows:sudo pacman -S octopi && cd /tmp
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/octopi-notifier-qt5
cd ./octopi-notifier-qt5 && makepkg -si

  Once installed, execute octopi and check it out. In its preferences, you can determine which AUR helped you wish for it to use, so whenever terminal commands are invoked in it for building software from the AUR, you have options — by default in EndeavourOS, you may build AUR packages with yay.
  
  For the tray icon utility, which you may define whatever icons you like, this may be executed by launching /usr/bin/octopi-notifier. This has its own variety of options, few of which call on functions in Octopi. Once configured, you'll be able to see when any of your applications have updates available compared against the software you already have, which by default is shown with Pac-Man like ghosts (a nod to Pacman, the package manager's naming inspiration) of varying colours.
  
  
• Pamac
  …And now, you may throw out the window everything you've learned up to this point. Pamac is the self-sufficient, need-no-other solution usually exclusive to the Ubuntu-wannabe Arch Linux fork Manjaro, but various packages are provided by third-parties in the AUR. Yet; to get there, you need to build it first:

  This is for the GTK 4 build, requiring libadwaita. There is a way to build the GTK 2+3 compatible instance of Pamac Manager by building older versions, such as my personal prreference of using the May 7th, 2023 release of libpamac-aur and pamac-aur but Planet Minecraft didn't like some of the URLs I was using, and in hindsight it's better to keep things in the main post simple anyway. I left a comment about the GTK 2+3 build procedure if you dislike GTK 4 Pamac flash-banging you every time you open Pamac Manager.

  cd /tmp
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/libpamac-aur
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/pamac-aur
cd ./libpamac-aur && makepkg -si
cd ../pamac-aur && makepkg -si


  Before building, there are other things you can do in this PKGBUILD file for libpamac-aur to further enhance Pamac's functionality, explained below.

  
  Before building, there are a couple of other things you can make adjustments to, depending on if you ever want to enable its support for Snap and Flatpak packages. Regardless what revision of libpamac-aur you are building, it's PKGBUILD file will always have the following:ENABLE_FLATPAK=0
ENABLE_SNAPD=0

  You must re-build libpamac-aur if you had already built it before modifying these toggles. If following the advice in the my comment below this post, you must rebuild that version of libpmac-aur. There's some wiggle room for version inter-compatibility, but just stick with what worked before and you'll be fine.

  
  Changing any instance of 0 to 1 there will enable Flatpak and Snap packages, respectively. Both varieties of Pamac will require the same packages for each, so enable them at will and this will influence what is available to you upon execution of pamac-manager, which is given to you by building pamac-aur.
  
  When you launch Pamac Manager, it might be difficult to find preferences at first; the overflow (…) menu at the top left will reveal a menu which enables you to access preferences, at which point you can go into the Third Party tab and enable use of AUR, as well additional formats you've built libpamac-aur with and which sources receive updates as they are made available.
  
  
• Bauh
  Bauh is a recent package manager I had found while researching for this. Built as a Python application also using Qt5, it is meant to be multi-modal as possible; enabling not only management of native and AUR packages, but also optionally Snap, Flatpak and AppImage packages as well, and you are allowed to launch applications directly within Bauh so you may omit the need for an application launcher as long Bauh is running to seek and execute software binaries.
  
  To install is relatively simple, and we'll also fetch lib32-fakeroot just in case any older applications needing things from multilib are built:cd /tmp
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/bauh && cd ./bauh
makepkg -si && sudo pacman -S lib32-fakeroot
  Though, unlike Pamac or Octopi, it seems Bauh disregards ignored package preferences as-configured in /etc/pacman.conf. But it's something to keep an eye on, as with a little more polish and capabilities to respect ignored packages (since, if using software from the AUR, you may need to ignore some updates as a code freeze or self-management of dependencies), this may well be a premier solution as an alternative to Octopi. Check it out and see if you like it!