A pacman repo focusing on ArchLinux and ArchLinuxARM as media center

Supported platforms

The repo is only for the following two distro and architecture combinations:

• ArchLinux on x86_64
• ArchLinux ARM on aarch64

Any other distros or platforms are neither tested, supported or intended to be run on. If you encounter any issue on those platforms, don't report them.

Adding the repo

Note: The packages are built against the dependencies from the official repos (core and extra) and this repo, and they're updated hourly, if you have other third party repos enabled, you'd better place this repo prior to other third party repos so you won't fetch wrong deps from their repos. The only exception is archlinuxcn, which I actively check for packaging conflicts

Direct trust

import my signing key:

sudo pacman-key --recv-keys BA27F219383BB875
sudo pacman-key --lsign BA27F219383BB875

add the following session in your /etc/pacman.conf:

[7Ji]
Server = https://github.com/7Ji/archrepo/releases/download/$arch

install my keyring (this automatically populates the keys, which should be a no-op as it was already added)

sudo pacman -Syu 7ji-keyring

Temporary bypass

add the following session in your /etc/pacman.conf:

[7Ji]
SigLevel = Never
Server = https://github.com/7Ji/archrepo/releases/download/$arch

install my keyring

sudo pacman -Syu 7ji-keyring

remove the SigLevel line so the section now looks like this:

[7Ji]
Server = https://github.com/7Ji/archrepo/releases/download/$arch

Package list

Check aarch64.yaml and x86_64.yaml, the pkgbuilds section declares the lists. The URLs follows the alias rule documented here.

Note that, different from most of the existing repos, I don't maintain the repo config alongside the packages. But most of them are available either on AUR, or under 7Ji-PKGBUILDs organisation.

You might find the following packages useful:

• ffmpeg-mpp, ffmpeg4.4-mpp, chromium-mpp, kodi-matrix-mpp-git, kodi-nexus-mpp-git provide a powerful and attractive video decoding and playback experience on your ArchLinux ARM box.
• linux-aarch64-orangepi5-git, linux-radxa-rkbsp5-git, linux-aarch64-7ji, linux-aarch64-flippy provide up-to-date kernels for your ArchLinux ARM box.
• ffmpeg-full provide a powerful video en/decoding toolbox for your ArchLinux box.
• qbittorrent-enhanced-nox-git makes your box ideal for headless seeding application.
• ampart, ampart-git, git-mirrorer, usb2host are all shiny tools and sysutils written by 7Ji and they're released here officially.
• many other packages waiting for you to try out

Special note for ArchLinux ARM: all of the kernel packages in this repo follows the ArchLinux (non-ARM) way of packing kernels, and all DTBs are stored under /boot/dtbs/[package name] so multiple kernels don't conflict with each other. They do not follow the ALARM way and downstream way which conflicts with each other, therefore:

• You can install multiple kernel packages from this repo for multi-booting
• You can install kernel packages alongside ALARM official kernels for multi-booting
• You must use a different booting configuration or adapt your existing ones to boot my kernel packages.

AGGRESIVE REBUILD WARNING

For the minimum manual operation for the repo maintainer, the builder for this repo applies a strict rebuild rule:

The builder would rebuild pacakges on every update of the PKGBUILD themselves, their sources, and their dependencies.

This is all unattended and it makes sure as long as you do installation by pacman -Syu [package] you always get the one that links against the latest dependencies.

Howevev, the pkgver could be kept the same with the actual package already rebuilt and being a different binary release. This is a result of AUR-originated PKGBUILDs and that I don't want to introduce any difference from PKGBUILDs you would get from AUR directly.

In most cases you can just ignore the update without pkgver change and keep using your local one. But if your local one breaks with their dependencies updated from the official repo then you can just force a reinstall to update it to the one built against the latest dependency:

sudo pacman -Scc # Type y, enter, enter
sudo pacman -S [the broken package] 

Building

It is not recommended to try to build these packages by yourself, as they take too much time. But if you want to, use https://github.com/7Ji/arch_repo_builder, which is a naive repo builder written in Rust for this repo which targets Github releases as repo storage, and build every package with clean dependency chain.

Note that the builder would build packages in a procedural way, i.e. it expects built dependencies to be pushed to the repo and used in the next run instead of the current one. So you'll find trouble in the sense of "bootstrapping" the repo. This should be fixed later but it's not on top of my to-do list. To work around this, disable packages that don't have all dependencies met first, then re-enable them as you get more and more of them into your repo.

Build infrastructure

The aarch64 packages are built on an Orange Pi 5 Plus (RK3588 + 16G + NVMe) with an Orange Pi 5 (RK3588S + 8G) as distcc volunteer.

The x86_64 packages are built on an Intel NUC5PPYH (N3700 + 8G).

Both of the builders fetch config update (i.e. change to this repo) from my local git server instead of Github.

In most cases changes are pushed to the local server first before they reach GitHub. Changes that reach GitHub first (e.g.by other contributors, or via PR) would need to be verified by myself before they reach the local git server and the builders.

Contribution

Package guideline

Keep in mind all of the packages need to be built on limited resource as listed in the previous section. And adding them to the repo is not a build-once-use-forever affair, they need to be re-built on every update of the package itself, its sources, and any of the dependencies. This project, like all my other projects, run without sponsorship. So, I don't want to accept packages that's not absolutely needed.

Packages meeting the following conditions won't be accepted:

• Already maintained in a repo, especially already maintained in a distro's official repo
• Not verified to work on actual hardware
• Take too much time to build

Adding package

Create a PR which modifies aarch64.yaml and/or x86_64.yaml. After the PR merged, wait for the builder's next hourly update.

License

The repo config, document, and wrapper scripts, i.e. all files living in this git repository, are licensed under AGPLv3

The builder which lives in another repo is licensed under Apache 2.0 + MIT dual license just like most of the other Rust projects.

The PKGBUILDs used to create the packages each has their own licensing, and the sources are not maintained here.

The released packages follow the same license as their upstream, and the sources are not maintained here.