Installing yay AUR Helper on Manjaro 21
Manjaro 21 users who want to tap into the endless world of AUR packages need a reliable helper. Installing yay is quick, and once it’s up, every “pacman ‑S” feels like a breeze.
Prerequisites – Get the basics in place
AUR helpers rely on a working build environment. The first step is to make sure the base-devel group and git are present:
sudo pacman -S --needed base-devel git
This pulls in essential tools such as make, gcc, and pkgbuild. Without them, you’ll hit compilation errors the moment you try to build an AUR package.
Cloning the yay Repository – Grab the source
Next, clone the latest yay sources from GitHub:
git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/yay.git
cd yay
Cloning gives you the freshest version. If your system hiccups after a recent kernel update—something that can happen when new drivers arrive—the repository is usually still healthy, so pulling again often fixes strange build failures.
Building and Installing – Turn source into executable
Now compile yay with makepkg:
makepkg -si
The -s flag resolves dependencies automatically; the -i installs the finished package. Watching the output, you’ll see the compiler turning C code into a command‑line tool that talks to pacman and AUR behind the scenes.
Verify the installation – Quick sanity check
Confirm yay works:
yay -V
The version number should appear. If it does, you’re ready to install packages from AUR without writing out makepkg every time.
Using yay – One more example
To install a popular theme, for instance:
yay -S paper-gtk-theme
yay handles dependencies, builds the package, and installs it in one go—no manual compilation required unless the PKGBUILD specifically demands it.
