Gentoolkit
emerge — configuration — ebuild repository — dispatch-conf
world file — USE flags — ebuilds — profiles
upgrades — using testing packages — binary packages
tools — gentoolkit — eselect
Portage FAQ — cheat sheet — FAQ
all articles
gentoolkit is a suite of tools to ease the administration of a Gentoo system, and Portage in particular.
Gentoo is a very unique distribution, with certain specifics that are not present in other systems. Several tools developed to help with Gentoo usage have been contributed, and are grouped in the app-portage/gentoolkit package.
gentoolkit contains tools to help users manage packages and keep track of what is going on in their systems. Most users - particularly those who update systems often - will benefit from having gentoolkit installed.
The gentoolkit commands have man pages, type "man <command>" for each command for full documentation.
Installation
USE flags
USE flags for app-portage/gentoolkit Collection of administration scripts for Gentoo
test
|
Enable dependencies and/or preparations necessary to run tests (usually controlled by FEATURES=test but can be toggled independently) |
Emerge
Install gentoolkit:
root #emerge --ask app-portage/gentoolkiteclean
eclean is a tool to remove old source files and old binary packages from the system.
When building and installing packages, the source files are downloaded and preserved in DISTDIR, usually /var/cache/distfiles. This can accumulate several gigabytes of material over time if it is not cleaned periodically. Users should run eclean-dist to clean source files from DISTDIR.
It is possible to create archives of installed packages by using quickpkg or FEATURES="buildpkg". These archived packages are kept in PKGDIR, usually /var/cache/binpkgs. When they are no longer needed, or if they are too old, eclean-pkg can be run to remove them from PKGDIR. It is a good way to ensure that any binary packages on the system are only the latest versions.
For more information on eclean and tips on maintaining a cruft-free system, please read man eclean or check the eclean article.
epkginfo
epkginfo is a tool used to display package metadata information. It is a shortcut to using the equery meta command.
equery
equery is a tool to make several common Portage operations simpler. Among other operations, it can display package dependencies, metadata, and installed files.
eread
eread is a simple utility to display elog files produced by Portage since version 2.1. The saving of elog files can be enabled by setting a couple of variables in /etc/portage/make.conf:
make.confEnabling elogPORTAGE_ELOG_CLASSES="log"
PORTAGE_ELOG_SYSTEM="save"
This is only one way of saving elog messages. For more information on how Portage's elog system works, please refer to the appropriate page in the Portage Handbook.
Once elog has been set up to satisfaction, run eread to view the log files.
user $ereadThis is a list of portage log items. Choose a number to view that file or type q to quit. 1) app-portage:gentoolkit-0.2.4_pre2:20070320-000256.log 2) app-portage:gentoolkit-0.2.4_pre2:20070320-000258.log 3) app-portage:gentoolkit-0.2.4_pre2:20070320-000319.log 4) app-portage:gentoolkit-0.2.3:20070320-000408.log Choice?
Select a number and the file will be displayed using the paging program specified in the PAGER environment variable. If PAGER is not set, it will use less. The PAGER environmental variable can be set using eselect (module pager).
After displaying the elog item, the user will be prompted to delete the file.
eshowkw
Display keywords for specified package or for package that is in pwd.
To show keywords for a specific package, indicate that package on the command line, for example:
root #eshowkw gentoo-sources
Keywords for sys-kernel/gentoo-sources:
| | u |
| a a p s l r a | n |
| m r h p p i o i s l m m | e u s | r
| d a m p p c a x a o s 3 p 6 i | a s l | e
| 6 r 6 p p 6 r 8 6 n c 9 h 8 p | p e o | p
| 4 m 4 a c 4 c 6 4 g v 0 a k s | i d t | o
----------+-------------------------------+--------------+-------
4.14.302 | o o o o o o + o o o o o o o o | 8 o 4.14.302 | gentoo
----------+-------------------------------+--------------+-------
4.14.305 | + + + ~ + + ~ + ~ o o ~ ~ ~ ~ | 8 o 4.14.305 | gentoo
----------+-------------------------------+--------------+-------
4.14.309 | + ~ ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ o ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | 8 o 4.14.309 | gentoo
----------+-------------------------------+--------------+-------
4.14.311 | ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ o ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | 8 o 4.14.311 | gentoo
----------+-------------------------------+--------------+-------
4.14.312 | ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ o ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ | 8 o 4.14.312 | gentoo
euse
euse provides functionality to set (disable/enable) and obtain information about USE flags in make.conf, without having to edit the file directly.
revdep-rebuild
It is not necessary to run this tool for general use. The portage FEATURE preserve-libs makes the original purpose obsolete. The primary purpose of this tool is now ABI changes for specific libraries when instructions are provided by developers.
This tool is Gentoo's reverse dependency rebuilder. It will scan the installed ebuilds to find packages that have become broken as a result of an upgrade of a package they depend on. It can emerge those packages for users automatically but it can also happen that a given package does not work with the currently installed dependencies, in which case the broken package should be upgraded to a more recent version.
revdep-rebuild will pass flags to emerge which lets the --pretend flag pass through, to see what is going to be emerged again before going any further.
user $revdep-rebuild -p* Configuring search environment for revdep-rebuild * Checking reverse dependencies * Packages containing binaries and libraries broken by a package update * will be emerged. * Collecting system binaries and libraries * Generated new 1_files.rr * Collecting complete LD_LIBRARY_PATH * Generated new 2_ldpath.rr * Checking dynamic linking consistency [ 48% ] * broken /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttaglib.la (requires /usr/lib/libtag.la) [ 64% ] * broken /usr/lib/libgdkglext-x11-1.0.la (requires /usr/lib/libGLU.la) [ 67% ] * broken /usr/lib/libgtkglext-x11-1.0.la (requires /usr/lib/libGLU.la) [ 85% ] * broken /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/gdkgl/_gdkgl.la (requires /usr/lib/libGLU.la) * broken /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtkgl/_gtkgl.la (requires /usr/lib/libGLU.la) [ 97% ] * broken /usr/qt/3/lib/libqt-mt.la (requires -lpng) [ 100% ] * Generated new 3_broken.rr * Assigning files to packages * /usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgsttaglib.la -> media-plugins/gst-plugins-taglib * /usr/lib/libgdkglext-x11-1.0.la -> x11-libs/gtkglext * /usr/lib/libgtkglext-x11-1.0.la -> x11-libs/gtkglext * /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/gdkgl/_gdkgl.la -> dev-python/pygtkglext * /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk/gtkgl/_gtkgl.la -> dev-python/pygtkglext * /usr/qt/3/lib/libqt-mt.la -> x11-libs/qt * Generated new 4_raw.rr and 4_owners.rr * Cleaning list of packages to rebuild * Generated new 4_pkgs.rr * Assigning packages to ebuilds * Generated new 4_ebuilds.rr * Evaluating package order * Generated new 5_order.rr * All prepared. Starting rebuild emerge --oneshot --pretend dev-python/pygtkglext:0 media-plugins/gst-plugins-taglib:0.10 x11-libs/gtkglext:0 x11-libs/qt:3 These are the packages that would be merged, in order: Calculating dependencies... done! [ebuild R ] media-plugins/gst-plugins-taglib-0.10.17 [ebuild R ] x11-libs/gtkglext-1.2.0 [ebuild R ] x11-libs/qt-3.3.8b-r2 [ebuild R ] dev-python/pygtkglext-1.1.0 * Now you can remove -p (or --pretend) from arguments and re-run revdep-rebuild.
To rebuild some packages run revdep-rebuild without the -p flag and the listed packages will be emerged again.
root #revdep-rebuildOther tools
gentoolkit also provides other tools:
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| ebump | Ebuild revision bumper (more useful for developers). |
| enalyze | Gentoo's installed packages analysis and repair tool. See man page, which states "CAUTION: This is beta software and is not yet feature complete". |
| imlate | Displays candidates for keywords for an architecture (more useful for developers?). |
See the man pages for each of these tools for more info.
See also
- Q applets — a collection of small, fast Portage query utilities written in C.
- Useful Portage tools — provides a list of Gentoo-specific system management tools, notably for Portage, available in the ebuild repository.
This page is based on a document formerly found on our main website gentoo.org.
The following people contributed to the original document: Matt Butcher, John P. Davis, Erwin, Shyam Mani, Xavier Neys, Karl Trygve, José Luis Rivero, Joshua Saddler, Douglas Anderson
They are listed here because wiki history does not allow for any external attribution. If you edit the wiki article, please do not add yourself here; your contributions are recorded on each article's associated history page.