Why?

[hfrjkse]

Why Arch is getting so annoying?
The story:
A year or two ago I spent a few weeks (mostly reading the forum) in order to build and configure a little arm server. It was running perfectly to the day that I stupidly decided to do full system upgrade without making a copy of flash drive that the system was running from... and system died. Tough luck, I thought. I'll rebild the system and because I've made notes on each step I took before, this time it may take a day or two. WRONG! That would be too easy! I've already spent two days and I'm getting really annoyed. Why for god's sake YOU (the developers) treat us - arch users like a bunch of idiots? WHY ROOT IS NOT ANYMORE ROOT IN ARCH? Root used to be a God in Linux before and now is only another, limited user with limited rights. If root wants to destroy his machine - LET HIM DO THAT! HE IS THE ROOT!!!

An example? Here you go. I need to install a package from unofficial repository. It was quite easy before using yaourt. Now you can't even install yarout from official repository - you have to build yaourt on your own first. Ok, thats only another (made for unknow reason) obstracle on the way. I still have the files for my package saved, so I'll use it to build it on new system.

In order to build the package I used to use --asroot before. Now it was removed from pacman. Unfortunately. And what happens now? Well...

********************************************
* Trying to build the package as root: *
********************************************
==> ERROR: Running makepkg as root is not allowed as it can cause permanent,
catastrophic damage to your system.

OK! I KNOW! LET ME DO THAT ON MY RESPONIBILITY!!! I WAS WARNED!

******************************************************
* Trying to build the package as another user: *
******************************************************
The user is not in sudoer list and has no rights to write

NOT EVEN ON NON-SYSTEM FLASH DRIVE!
What typical Arch user can do then? He still can read, but maybe this is too much - you should
consider removing such dangerous function from next release.
If the user can't write and can't read you are a step closer from making perfectly safe system.
Well, actually why arch needs users at all? Don't allow to create any users. Go further - don't
allow to login into system by any user including root. The system is then almost 100% safe! Let
the system to live on his own! Just to be safe.

...and now seriously:


**********************************************************************************
* New user is added to sudoers list to get write rights and using sudo *
**********************************************************************************
AGAIN!
Running makepkg as root is not allowed as it can cause permanent,
catastrophic damage to your system.


**************************************
* New user without using sudo *
**************************************
==> ERROR: You do not have write permission to create packages in /media/....
Aborting...

And so on, so on...

I realize that it's surely easy for the system creators to do what they want, but it's not for us - regular users. If Arch is intended to use only for you - the developers, that's fine. Do whatever you want. But if you would like to see growing Arch enthusiast society, then think twice, before you do something stupid. Please. You really doing the same what MS has done with Windows 8 and the new office. Make everything not-intuitive and akward to use. I do appreciate your work, but I don't appreciate the recent changes in Arch.

[pepedog]

It is annoying, but --asroot made us lazy
Add this to /etc/sudoers (change username to user who builds)
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'Defaults targetpw
username ALL=(ALL) ALL')

[hfrjkse]

I've added these lines using visudo and after invoking makepkg -Acs on this account I'm getting:

==> ERROR: You do not have write permission to create packages in /media/folder.
Aborting...

[pepedog]

So you have edited #PKGDEST= in makepkg.conf
You will have to alter permissions for that folder

[hfrjkse]

The package is quite big like for arm and when Arch was more user friendly before, I had to even enable swap to make the pakage which took 5 hours. With new arch I managed to build a small package in /tmp folder. It was yaourt which dissapered from official repository (why?). Unfortunately, this package won't fit there. I have extraction errors due to full disk, so I decided to use second flash drive, mounted in. I've edited makepkg.conf including the folder location where PKGBUILD file is located. I'm still getting the same error.

Probably there is a way, but a good system doesn't require from the user to spend a week or two to do a simple operation. I already spent a week 2 years ago to learn how to do that, but everything has changed since and it will again. I couldn't even upgrade the system, because it is not compatibile with the system from 2013.

I can't use default tmp folder due to size
I can't do it as the root as it would be catastrohpic for the system,
I can't do it as another user as I don't have permissions to write,
I can't do it as another user using sudo as this is also catastrophic for the system,
--asroot was removed from pacman, so I can't use it either

[pepedog]

Rollback pacman then, either in cache folder or rollback.archlinuxarm.org

[WarheadsSE]

http://allanmcrae.com/2014/12/pacman-4-2-released/

This is not something that the developers of Arch Linux ARM have done. This comes up "upstream" Arch Linux, and as such, is not our prerogative.

Mount your other disk with the correct permissions, or assign them via chmod/chown.

[hfrjkse]

[root@alarm ~]# ': Operation not permitted
> chown: changing ownership of '/media/........': Operation not permitted

Does root have any rights left in arch anymore? This is ridiculous.

I understand that you are not guilty of the crime commited on arch, but don't you have anything to say in the matter where arch is going to, to the people who are? Or they just don't want to listen to anybody, but themselves?

[hfrjkse]

Next I followed wiki manual https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/US ... ge_devices

QUOTE:
__________________________________________________________________________________
As normal user with fstab

If you want non-root users to be able to mount a USB memory stick via fstab, add the following line to your /etc/fstab file:

/dev/sdXY /mnt/usbstick vfat user,noauto,noatime,flush 0 0

or better:

UUID=E8F1-5438 /mnt/usbstick vfat user,noauto,noatime,flush 0 0

(see description of user and other options in the main article)
Note: Where /dev/sdXY is replaced with the path to your own usbstick, see Mounting USB memory.

Now, any user can mount it with:

$ mount /mnt/usbstick
____________________________________________________________________________________________________


fstab edited to mach my username and proper UUID, folder "usbstick" created in /mnt
so according to wiki "Now, any user can mount it "
really?
mount: only root can mount UUID=4C38-417A on /mnt/usbstick

WTF?

The username is "guest" and as this user I can't even create a folder in HIS HOME DIRECTORY:
mkdir /home/$USER/packages
I'm getting:
mkdir: cannot create directory '/home/guest/packages': Permission denied

WTF again!

[krabat]

Arch Linux as well as Arch Linux ARM as some kind of derivative are bleeding edge distros. Thus it's in their nature that all kinds of weirdness have to be expected if you want to apply knowledge acquired two years ago.
I can't confirm a single of the problems you state. The general way AUR helpers are handled hasn't changed at all in the last two years. root still has exactly the same rights and meaning. makepkg can be told to drop the packages wherever it is supposed to. Regular users can get permissions to mount USB sticks and the like by fstab without any issue. Etc., etc.

So with all respect it's pretty obvious that you're doing it wrong and the problems are at your side.
There are several things you might want to consider. Leave Arch Linux [ARM] as bleeding edge distros may not fit your needs. Set up your system from scratch relying on recent documentation. Try to investigate the problems on your system in a reasonable way (which you don't seem to do right now).
You might also want to calm down before you do anything else related to this OS.

But something you definitely shouldn't go on doing is spamming the forums with capital letter nonsense and four letter words. You don't really expect volunteers which we all are to be helpful by offending them, do you?