7

In Debian based distributions you can run apt-get source <package_name> to fetch the source code for a package. What is the equivalent for pacman on Arch Linux?

Drew Chapin
  • 6,270

1 Answers1

9

  1. Install the Arch Build Source Management Tool (i.e. the asp command, formerly abs). 

    sudo pacman -S asp

  2. Download the PKGBUILD 

    asp export <package_name>

  3. Download the PKGBUILD source files

    cd <package_name>
makepkg -do

    -d, --nodeps
    Do not perform any dependency checks. This will let you override and ignore any dependencies required. There is a good chance this option will break the build process if all of the dependencies are not installed.

    -o, --nobuild
    Download and extract files, run the prepare() function, but do not build them. Useful with the --noextract option if you wish to tweak the files in $srcdir/ before building.

    You may need to add --skippgpcheck if you get this error

    ==> ERROR: One or more PGP signatures could not be verified!

  4. Source will be be in src sub-directory.

If you find that you're doing this frequently, you could add a function to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.bash_profile 

function get-source()
{
    asp export $1 && \
    pushd $1 && \
    makepkg -do --skippgpcheck && \
    pushd src
}

Then you can just run

get-source <package_name>
Drew Chapin
  • 6,270