Cower – A Simple AUR Helper For Arch Linux

Important Update:

Please don’t use Cower. It is out dated and discontinued. Use Yay AUR helper instead. https://ostechnix.com/yay-found-yet-another-reliable-aur-helper/

We have already written about some AUR helpers, such as Pacaur, Packer, Trizen, - Yaourt and Yay, which are used to install third party packages from Arch User Repository(AUR). Today, we will see how to install yet another simple AUR helper called Cower, which is also used to download and install packages from AUR in Arch Linux and its variants like Antergos and Manjaro Linux etc..

Cower - A Simple AUR Helper For Arch Linux

Installation

To install Cower on Arch linux and its derivatives such as Antergos, Manjaro Linux, run the following commands one by one:

$ gpg --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://pgp.mit.edu 1EB2638FF56C0C53

$ curl -o PKGBUILD https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/plain/PKGBUILD?h=cower

$ makepkg -i PKGBUILD --noconfirm

Usage

Cower works quite a lot like Pacman, the default package manager of Arch based systems.

The typical usage of Cower is:

$ cower <operation> [ options ] [ targets ]

To search for a specific package from AUR using Cower, simply run:

$ cower -s <PACKAGE>

Example:

$ cower -s vlc

The command will search for the specified target i.e vlc from AUR.

To search multiple packages, specify them space separated as below.

$ cower -s <PACKAGE1> <PACKAGE2>

To download specific package, use -d flag as shown below.

$ cower -d <PACKAGE>

To view the information of a package, use -i flag.

$ cower -i <PACKAGE>

To update all packages, just use -u parameter.

$ cower -u

This command will check for updates all installed packages from AUR. You can also specify packages to only check updates for those packages.

$ cower -u <PACKAGE>

You can also download updates by passing the -d flag like below.

$ cower -ud

For more details, check the man pages.

$ man cower

That's all for now. I will be soon here with another useful guide. If you find this guide useful, share it on your social networks and support OSTechNix.

Cheers!

Resource:

• Cower GitHub Repository