Arch Linux User Repository

I opened a renaming discussion at github, I'm still hesitant on renaming though

can't install, same issue as below

(1/1) checking for file conflicts                                                                [########################################################] 100%
error: failed to commit transaction (conflicting files)
mcat-bin: /usr/bin/mcat exists in filesystem (owned by mtools)
Errors occurred, no packages were upgraded.

One annoying thing about this "mdcat-bin" PKGBUILD is the conflict with an "important" official Archlinux package, mtools. It also has a binary called "/usr/bin/mcat"

You were already warned of this here, https://reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1kef83e/just_released_two_rust_crates_markdownify_and/

    Sadly has a name conflict with mcat from the package mtools.

I noticed that too late sadly, not sure if I should change the name of the bin (I don't use gnu)

....
....

IMO, Yes you should, mcat is an old and well known tool, this brings confusion,
makes life harder for a lot of people who might be interested in using your
stuff and if you just don’t care, I think it sends a not so nice message for
not real obvious win :)

Yes, unfortunate indeed. My personal opinion. Yes, you should do this rename ASAP. Whatever it might "cost" you. The more time you wait, the worst. If "mtools" was just a "simple" joe-nobody package, this wouldnt be such a big deal. Nobody wants to mess with important fs/partition/sys tools even if ocasionally used. Just respect the "old guy" that was there first ... :-) ....

pacman -Si mtools

Name            : mtools
Description     : A collection of utilities to access MS-DOS disks
URL             : https://www.gnu.org/software/mtools/
Depends On      : bash  glibc
Optional For    : gparted  grub
Conflicts With  : None
Replaces        : None
Packager        : Christian Heusel <gromit@archlinux.org>
Build Date      : Sun 15 Jun 2025 12:20:18 PM WEST

:: gparted optionally requires mtools: utilities to access MS-DOS disks
:: grub optionally requires mtools: For grub-mkrescue FAT FS support

$ pacman -Fl mtools

mtools /usr/bin/amuFormat.sh
mtools /usr/bin/floppyd
....
....
mtools /usr/bin/mcat
....
....
mtools /usr/bin/mformat
mtools /usr/bin/mtools

Some suggestions. Just add some "rs" to it. Something like "mcatrs" "rsmcat" or "mcat-rs" . Dont get stuck on that having to have the word "cat" on the name.

$ tar tf mcat-bin/mcat-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz

mcat-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/
mcat-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/README.md
mcat-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/mcat
mcat-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/CHANGELOG.md

So you ship the "README.md" and the "CHANGELOG.md" there on the precompiled github binary. Nice. Please make sure to also install them with the PKGBUILD. So they land in,

/usr/share/doc/mcat/README.md
/usr/share/doc/mcat/CHANGELOG.md

and

/usr/share/licenses/mcat/LICENCE ??? missing

You do it with the install -Dm644 XXXX "$pkgdir/usr/share/doc/XXXXX ..."

Thanks for the tool and the PKGBUILD. I'm testing it as an alternative to the usefull and nice, https://github.com/swsnr/mdcat, that seems abandoned. Used to be an official Arch package. If convinced I would like to recommend "mcat" as a powerfull markdown helper to https://github.com/wofr06/lesspipe/ . Lesspipe is using "mdcat".

I'm very impressed with the power of that crate/lib "markdownify".

The important thing is that

• it plays nice with less/lesspipe or other pagers
• nicely reformats markdown headers/links
• images / conversions are a nice optional to have but not essential/mandatory
• no interest in chromium etc support
• I dont want unsolicited network requests beeing made by the tool to github (??? still testing/understandig this)

      --fetch-chromium    Download and prepare chromium
      --fetch-ffmpeg      Download and prepare ffmpeg
      --fetch-clean       Clean up local binaries

Please change the "Desc" on the PKGBUILD to something more usefull. You have this,

    A powerful extended cat command, to cat all the things you couldn't before

It doesnt even include the word "markdown". I had a lot of trouble finding it.

On the github repo you have,

Terminal image, video, and Markdown viewer

My suggestion

Desc: Powerfull terminal markdown viewer with support for image, video, docx, pdf conversion. Interacts nicely with the system pager

I, personally, dont like much theses references to "cat". Bat also does this thing ,

Name            : bat
Version         : 0.26.1-2
Description     : Cat clone with syntax highlighting and git integration

It just confuses the user. It hides the fact that these tools are just producing outuput enriched with escape sequences that can be seen directly on the terminal or paged.

you're right thanks you !

I just verified the source files against the current upstream release, and the checksums in the PKGBUILD are correct on my end.

This usually happens if you have an old or corrupted file cached in your build directory. Your AUR helper might be trying to reuse that file instead of downloading a fresh one.

Please try deleting the cache folder for this specific package to force a redownload (e.g., rm -rf ~/.cache/yay/mcat if you are using yay) and then try again.

hello :)

==> Validating source_x86_64 files with sha256sums...
    mcat-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.xz ... FAILED
==> ERROR: One or more files did not pass the validity check!