Portage package manager
Portage is the package manager for Gentoo and the emerge
command-line tool.
The configuration directory is in /etc/portage
which adjusts package specifics according to the user’s needs:
binrepos.conf
is for configuring an experimental binary package host.make.conf
contains some auto-generated and customized global USE flags.make.profile
is a symbolic link to the eselected Gentoo profile.package.accept_keywords
contains package-specific USE flags.package.license
contains unmasked licenses.package.mask
contains packages masked by the user.package.unmask
contains unmasked packages.package.use
contains package-specific USE flags.profile
is a profile-specific configuration directory.repos.conf
contains eselected ebuild repositories.savedconfig
.sets
contains custom context-dependent sets.
For a deeper structure most of these configuration files can be converted to directories.
The most important configuration file is make.conf
where it’s possible to set USE flags globally:
CFLAGS
see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Safe_CFLAGS.CXXFLAGS
.USE
supersedes any default USE flags for package defaults.ACCEPT_KEYWORDS
supersedes the default profile flags and allows to pick the stable or unstable branch for package defaults.
Tips
- Set
MAKEOPTS
inmake.conf
according to the capabilities of the CPU and RAM. - The default
ACCEPT_LICENSE
setting is-* @FREE
. This setting used to be* -@EULA
for older Gentoo builds: https://www.gentoo.org/support/news-items/2019-05-23-accept_license.html.