The purpose of this guide is to help AUR users compile complex packages using an AUR helper such as yay in a clean environment and help to keep primary user facing systems free of clutter.
It is wise to read the Arch Wiki on building in a clean chroot. If this method does not work, or immolates the computer, follow the instructions on the wiki page to properly build the package in a clean chroot.
Firstly, install devtools on the primary machine.
you@primary $ sudo pacman -S devtools
Set an environment variable for the package to be installed.
you@primary $ export PKG=librewolf
Make the directory in which the new chroot will be created.
you@primary $ mkdir -p $HOME/aur/chroot/$PKG/
Define the CHROOT environment variable to minimize typing in subsequent steps.
you@primary $ export CHROOT=$HOME/aur/chroot/$PKG
mkarchroot will create the root directory in the librewolf directory.
root@primary # mkarchroot $CHROOT/root base base-devel vi vim nano sudo wget
Use arch-nspawn to switch the shell into chroot.
you@primary $ arch-nspawn $CHROOT/root su -
Set a root passwd.
root@chroot # passwd
Edit /etc/makepkg.conf to compile on all cores.
root@chroot # awk -v cpu="$(nproc)" -v makeflags="#MAKEFLAGS=\"-j2\"" '{sub(makeflags,sprintf("MAKEFLAGS=\"-j%s\"", cpu))} 1' /etc/makepkg.conf >> /etc/makepkg.conf.tmp && mv /etc/makepkg.conf.tmp /etc/makepkg.conf
Edit /etc/pacman.conf to enable multilib. It's not needed for librewolf, however this command can come in handy for any AUR package which requires 32-bit libraries.
root@chroot # awk '$0=="#[multilib]"{c=2} c&&c--{sub(/#/,"")} 1' /etc/pacman.conf >> /etc/pacman.conf.tmp && mv /etc/pacman.conf.tmp /etc/pacman.conf
Ensure the chroot is up to date.
root@chroot # pacman -Syyu
Create a user to build aur packages in the wheel group
root@chroot # useradd -m -G wheel aur
Set the aur user's password.
root@chroot # passwd aur
Use visudo command to grant wheel users the ability to sudo. You can learn to use vi and vim here and it's quite fun.
root@chroot # visudo
Alternatively nano can be used as well.
root@chroot # EDITOR=nano visudo
Switch to the new aur user.
root@chroot # su - aur
Create the build directory for the package.
aur@chroot $ mkdir build && cd build
Copy the snapshot link for yay from the aur and wget the link
aur@chroot $ wget https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/snapshot/yay.tar.gz
Extract the yay.tar.gz archive and make the yay package.
aur@chroot $ tar xf yay.tar.gz && cd yay && makepkg -si
Use yay to build librewolf.
aur@chroot $ yay -S librewolf
Once this process is completed, exit the terminal.
librewolf can now be installed from the $CHROOT/root/home/aur/.cache/yay/librewolf/ directory on the primary computer with pacman -U.
root@primary # pacman -U $CHROOT/root/home/aur/.cache/yay/librewolf/librewolf-135.0.1-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.zst