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submitted 10 hours ago by PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com to c/linux@lemmy.ml

With the recent AUR supply-chain attack that compromised over 400 (and possibly up to 1,500) packages, I'm seriously considering switching distros. Attackers took over orphaned packages and modified PKGBUILDs to pull in malicious npm dependencies like atomic-lockfile, which deployed credential-stealing malware and even eBPF rootkits. The fact that the trusted packages themselves didn't look malicious makes this especially concerning.

Like many Arch users, I'll admit I don't carefully read every PKGBUILD before installing from the AUR. The official recommendation has always been to review them manually, but realistically, who does that for every package? This incident made me realize I've been relying on trust rather than vigilance.

I've been on Manjaro for years specifically because of the AUR's vastness, but this attack directly undermines that selling point for me. I ran the Distrochooser to see what else is out there, and it strongly recommended openSUSE as my top match: https://distrochooser.de/en/d5b4e0067841/

For those who've made the jump from Arch/Manjaro to openSUSE Tumbleweed (or Leap): How was the transition? How does the OBS compare to the AUR in terms of package availability for niche software?

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[-] gnunikky@lemmy.blahaj.zone 31 points 10 hours ago

I don't think jumping distro will solve your problem, any distro where you will without thinking install unofficial repo packages with have the same problem as AUR, switching to random peoples script in OBS, COPR and so on isn't solution imho.

[-] D_Air1@lemmy.ml 15 points 10 hours ago

Agreed, I feel like people are lacking a bit of self reflection in regards to this issue. The reason why people use the AUR is because it gives access to software outside of the official repos. No distro packages every piece of software out there. Therefore there is always a need for third party repos and that is why every distro has its own AUR equivalent. Thus leading to the same problem. Blindly installing software will never be a safe thing to do.

[-] gabmus@retrolemmy.com 8 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

also, if anything installing stuff from the AUR makes things slightly safer because PKGBUILDs and .install files are a lot easier to inspect: you can check the source repo/tarball/whatever points to an official source, and you can verify that the scripts (which are just shell scripts) are not doing anything nefarious.

on the other hand, IIRC OBS and COPR just distribute binaries that are very hard to inspect

EDIT: just don't use an AUR helper and you avoid most of the trouble

this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2026
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