Fixing "Target not found" in pacman (Maybe mirrorlist of pacman.conf

Question

I have been having a lot of problems with pacman in my new arch system. I can't install anything.

[root@life ~]# pacman -S pacaur

error: target not found: pacaur

I have tried everything including pacman -Syyu, reinstalling pacman and messing with mirrorlist which leads me to believe it might be a problem with mirrorlist or pacman.conf

Can someone help?

#
# /etc/pacman.conf
#
# See the pacman.conf(5) manpage for option and repository directives

#
# GENERAL OPTIONS
#
[options]
# The following paths are commented out with their default values listed.
# If you wish to use different paths, uncomment and update the paths.
#RootDir     = /
#DBPath      = /var/lib/pacman/
#CacheDir    = /var/cache/pacman/pkg/
#LogFile     = /var/log/pacman.log
#GPGDir      = /etc/pacman.d/gnupg/
HoldPkg     = pacman glibc
#XferCommand = /usr/bin/curl -C - -f %u > %o
#XferCommand = /usr/bin/wget --passive-ftp -c -O %o %u
#CleanMethod = KeepInstalled
#UseDelta    = 0.7
Architecture = auto

# Pacman won't upgrade packages listed in IgnorePkg and members of IgnoreGroup
#IgnorePkg   =
#IgnoreGroup =

#NoUpgrade   =
#NoExtract   =

# Misc options
#UseSyslog
#Color
#TotalDownload
CheckSpace
#VerbosePkgLists

# By default, pacman accepts packages signed by keys that its local keyring
# trusts (see pacman-key and its man page), as well as unsigned packages.
SigLevel    = Required DatabaseOptional
LocalFileSigLevel = Optional
#RemoteFileSigLevel = Required

# NOTE: You must run `pacman-key --init` before first using pacman; the local
# keyring can then be populated with the keys of all official Arch Linux
# packagers with `pacman-key --populate archlinux`.

#
# REPOSITORIES
#   - can be defined here or included from another file
#   - pacman will search repositories in the order defined here
#   - local/custom mirrors can be added here or in separate files
#   - repositories listed first will take precedence when packages
#     have identical names, regardless of version number
#   - URLs will have $repo replaced by the name of the current repo
#   - URLs will have $arch replaced by the name of the architecture
#
# Repository entries are of the format:
#       [repo-name]
#       Server = ServerName
#       Include = IncludePath
#
# The header [repo-name] is crucial - it must be present and
# uncommented to enable the repo.
#

# The testing repositories are disabled by default. To enable, uncomment the
# repo name header and Include lines. You can add preferred servers immediately
# after the header, and they will be used before the default mirrors.

#[testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[core]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[extra]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

#[community-testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

[community]
Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# If you want to run 32 bit applications on your x86_64 system,
# enable the multilib repositories as required here.

#[multilib-testing]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

#[multilib]
#Include = /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist

# An example of a custom package repository.  See the pacman manpage for
# tips on creating your own repositories.
#[custom]
#SigLevel = Optional TrustAll
#Server = file:///home/custompkgs

Displaying pacman.conf.

##
## Arch Linux repository mirrorlist
## Sorted by mirror score from mirror status page
## Generated on 2014-12-28
##

## Score: 0.5, United States
Server = http://mirror.us.leaseweb.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 0.9, United States
Server = http://lug.mtu.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, United States
Server = http://mirror.umd.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, United States
Server = http://mirror.rit.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, United States
Server = http://mirrors.acm.wpi.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.1, United States
Server = http://archlinux.surlyjake.com/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.2, United States
Server = http://www.gtlib.gatech.edu/pub/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.2, United States
Server = https://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.3, United States
Server = http://archlinux.pallissard.net/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.4, United States
Server = http://mirrors.cecsresearch.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.4, United States
Server = http://mirror.cs.pitt.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.5, United States
Server = http://mirrors.cat.pdx.edu/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.7, United States
Server = http://mirror.jmu.edu/pub/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.8, United States
Server = http://mirror.grig.io/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.9, United States
Server = http://mirrors.aggregate.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 1.9, United States
Server = http://mirrors.kernel.org/archlinux/$repo/os/$arch
## Score: 2.0, United States

Answer 1

pacman cannot find the target because it only searches the official repositories. And pacaur, actually lives in the AUR.

AUR helpers, like yaourt or packer, make searching for, and installing, AUR packages really simply. If you don't have one of these, you can always do things manually using the desired PKGBUILD. All you need to do is compile it from source using makepkg and then install it via pacman.

For example:

mkdir ~/pkgs && cd ~/pkgs

wget https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/pa/pacaur/PKGBUILD

makepkg -s

sudo pacman -U pacaur-4.2.14-1-any.pkg.tar.xz