Can I safely abort an emerge?

[DrZettl]

I emerged 'net-analyzer/nmap'.
I didn't know about the USE flags. Part of nmap's USE is gnome. Gnome is dependant on XFree86. So basically my gentoo is compiling XFree86 right now so i can use nmap.

Now, can I Ctrl-C the emerge?
If so, will it clean up after itself?
If not, can I unemerge it after Ctrl-Cing it to clean it up?

[Scott_the_Great]

Short Answer: Sure, abort out anytime you like.

Longer Answer:
No, portage won't clean up after itself, so you're going to have to remove the files in /var/tmp/portage/{packagename}. (For XFree86, it should be: /var/tmp/portage/xfree, IIRC) Of course, if you're not strapped for disk space, you could just leave it there...

As long as you actually cancel the emerge before it finishes the first package, there's no "unmerging" to be done, because nothing has actually been merged into your "real" filesystem yet... (The joys of portage...)

Hope this helps...

---Scott

[DrZettl]

Yeah, that helps.

Does a normal emerge clean up after itself? Or does it also leave crap in the /var directory?

I might just leave it going... i plan to install gnome or kde sometime anyway. It's taken half the day already, might aswell leave it going.

[Scott_the_Great]

Normally, portage cleans up after it "merges" the compiled stuff into your filesystem.

Actually, what happens (basically) is this: (in case you're interested...)
1. Unpack program source into /var/tmp/portage/{package}/work
2. Compile (i.e. run configure and make)
3. Install (i.e. run "make install") into /var/tmp/portage/{package}/image
4. Merge from /var/tmp/portage/{package}/image into "real" filesystem
5. Remove /var/tmp/portage/{package}/work
6. Remove /var/tmp/portage/{package}/image

Beyond that, it will leave behind a couple files in /var/tmp/portage/{package}/temp, but those are usually very small. (You can safely remove those if you feel the need...)

I've used the "remains" in the work directory many times when an ebuild errors out (by changing to that directory and trying a "make") in order to figure out what exactly went wrong...

---Scott