Gentoo#
Portage#
Portage is the Gentoo package manager.
emerge is main front-end to Portage. Other tools also exist (see wiki page [1] for list).
Repositories#
Portage fetches packages from repositories. Repos contains packages, known as ebuilds — plain text files containing all info to fetch and build software from source, e.g.:
root@肩車:~$ head /var/db/repos/gentoo/app-editors/vim/vim-8.2.0638.ebuild
# Copyright 1999-2021 Gentoo Authors
# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2
EAPI=7
VIM_VERSION="8.2"
PYTHON_COMPAT=( python3_{6,7,8} )
PYTHON_REQ_USE="threads(+)"
USE_RUBY="ruby24 ruby25 ruby26 ruby27"
inherit vim-doc flag-o-matic bash-completion-r1 python-single-r1 ruby-single desktop xdg-utils
Repos to use configured in /etc/portage/repos.conf. When in use, repo contents copied to /var/db/repos. Synchronizing repo simply fetches newest ebuilds [2]. Fetching usually done from closest rsync mirror [3] using rsync:
emerge --sync # OR
emaint sync
emaint is interface to portage for package/repo maintenance. emaint sync is prettier front-end to emerge --sync and is now preferred. Does fundamentally the same thing though.
Note
You probably want emaint sync --auto to sync all repos which are set to auto-sync (e.g. main gentoo repo).
Alternatively can also fetch snapshot over http and sync with emerge-webrsync. This is faster for first time as fetches whole repo contents as tarball. Also used to be only way to allow signature checking of repo contents. Nowadays though, emerge --sync-based commands also do signature checking — prefer this.
Packages#
Once local copy of repos contains newest ebuilds, can use info in ebuild to fetch source (and metadata) from source mirror [4] and build software. Source files are fetched and placed in /var/db/pkg/, e.g.:
root@肩車:~$ ls /var/db/pkg/app-editors/vim-8.2.0814-r100/
BUILD_TIME CFLAGS COUNTER DEPEND environment.bz2 INHERITED KEYWORDS NEEDED RDEPEND SIZE vim-8.2.0814-r100.ebuild
CATEGORY CHOST CXXFLAGS DESCRIPTION FEATURES IUSE LDFLAGS NEEDED.ELF.2 repository SLOT
CBUILD CONTENTS DEFINED_PHASES EAPI HOMEPAGE IUSE_EFFECTIVE LICENSE PF REQUIRES USE
Lists of packages to install and keep updated are known as sets. Default set is @world, and is simply the list of packages defined in /var/lib/portage/world, e.g.:
root@肩車:~$ cat /var/lib/portage/world
app-admin/logrotate
app-admin/sysklogd
app-editors/vim
dev-libs/libgpg-error
net-misc/dhcpcd
net-misc/netifrc
net-wireless/wpa_supplicant
sys-apps/pciutils
sys-boot/grub:2
sys-kernel/gentoo-sources
sys-kernel/linux-firmware
sys-process/dcron
To actually update packages, use emerge --update, e.g. to update all packages in @world set [5]:
emerge --update @world
Note
You probably want:
emerge --update\
--deep $(# Update dependecies too) \
--with-bdeps=y $(# Update build dependencies too) \
--newuse $(# Update anything whose USE has changed)\
--pretend $(# Dry run) \
--ask $(# Ask before proceeding) \
--tree $(# Show dep tree)\
--verbose $(# Speak!)\
@world
After doing full update, recommended to remove all unused dependencies:
emerge --depclean $(# Remove all no longer needed deps)\
--with-bdeps=n $(# Remove non-required build deps too)\
--pretend \
-atv
Kernel#
Kernel sources in /usr/src. Symlink linux to current kernel version. Kernel configuration file is /usr/src/linux/.config.
Build kernel (main and modules) with make. Once built, copy kernel modules to /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/kernel:
make modules_install
Modules to be automatically loaded at boot configured in /etc/modules-load.d.
Once built, copy kernel to /boot/vmlinuz-$(uname -r):
make install
Configure grub to find new kernel images by generating new /boot/grub/grub.cfg:
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg