Set up AUR package

[gunar]

Setting up skynet-cli as an AUR package should help increase adoption by Arch/Manjaro users.

[mrcnski]

Thanks for the issue. @ro-tex, do you have experience with this?

Would also be more than happy to accept a PR from the community.

In the meantime, it should be easy to install skynet-cli with Go or build it oneself.

[ro-tex]

To answer the question: No, I don't have experience setting up Arch packages.

Regarding the proposal itself, I think that skynet-cli is a library for Go developers, regardless of their platform of choice. As such, it's best for it to adhere to the standards of the Go world and be available via go get rather than a package manager. Similarly, I would expect from a Rust application or library to be available via cargo and a Node.js one to be available via npm and yarn.

That being said, I might not have the full picture here. @gunar do you think there is a compelling reason for an Arch package to be created and maintained? How would that be more helpful than the regular go get? I am not an Arch user, so I might be missing some critical peculiarity of the platform that makes a package reasonable.

Edit:

0. I shouldn't be answering posts before finishing my second coffee...
1. I was going through go-skynet just before reading this and I mistook one for the other.
2. Yes, it would be awesome to make skynet-cli accessible to as many people as possible in a convenient way. Arch, deb and snap packages are definitely welcome. Brew as well.

[gunar]

Hi guys,

Here's the thing. I'm not a golang developer myself. I don't even have go installed on this machine, and I don't know how golang's package manager works—nor rust's for that matter. Is this package intended for golang developers only? I don't think so, right? So adding it to AUR (and apt-get, etc) would allow for any linux user to quickly and easily install your tool and receive updates. I myself haven't installed it because I don't want to think and have to maintain yet another package manager on my machine.

I believe the present CLI tool can accelerate Skynet's adoption—it's free web hosting, who doesn't like that—and by adding it to AUR you remove friction on the onboarding process. That's my 1 cent.

Btw, if you decided to create an AUR package you can tie it to git commits or releases, making for a maintenance-free solution.

[mrcnski]

Fair enough @gunar. We definitely want the CLI to be on multiple package managers including apt, homebrew etc. They are convenient and the first place many people will check. I don't have much experience with package managers personally so you may have to be patient.

[gunar]

No worries! Shameless plug, happy to work with you. It'd take me only a couple of work hours to get it set up on AUR (the one I'm familiar with). Either way, wishing you guys good luck. Love the project.

[mrcnski]

We're always happy to accept contributions. No pressure though. Even just an outline of what needs to be done would be very appreciated!

[gunar]

FWIW I'm doing this for now

function skynet() {
  curl -X POST "https://siasky.net/skynet/skyfile" -F "file=@$1" \
    | jq ".skylink" | xargs -I _ echo "https://siasky.net/_"
}

PS: Congrats on closing the fundraising round!

[mrcnski]

Seems convenient, not sure what the relevance is to package managers though 🙃

BTW I added a Homebrew recipe and installation instructions to the README

[gunar]

That's a fair point. I'd named this issue in terms of a feature but ultimately my customer need was to be able to use the CLI to upload to Skynet.

[mrcnski]

Gotcha, I forgot that you had said you couldn't install the CLI on your machine.

Do you mind if I add that snippet to our docs?

[gunar]

Not at all! Be my guest.