Newbie wants more info on Emerge and Portage :)

casper2601

Hi everyone, hope all is well

I am a 4 day old Gentoo user and love it

I need to build my knowledge bank.

Can someone explain how emerge works in newbie language, basic commands and good practises to keep a clean system (while using emerge) I mean i know how to emerge something, but how can i tell what can be emerged (is there like a databank so i can know whats available)..is that where portage comes in???

Also could i get a newbie explanation on what the following do;

emerge sync
emerge -up world (and -u world)
source /etc/profile

aswell as simple ones

make
make clean
mrproper
and good practises when configuring kernel.
stuff like this, so i have good understanding.

last quick question...what are good command or practises to keep a clean up to date gentoo system.

MASSIVE thanks in advance guys, once I get a bet better (with your help) I plan on helping people whenever I can on this forum.

best regards,
Casper
/etc

Firebirth · n00b Joined: 05 Jan 2003 Posts: 47

portage is a system of ebuilds. And ebuilds are scripts that configure, compiles and installs programs on your system.

The portage tree is dynamic, and thus are people writing new and updating old scripts constantly. - In order to be completely up to date, and getting the newest scripts, you have to type, as root,

scoobydu · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 10:10 am Post subject:

Firebirth, Great response, just had to copy it into a document for future reference!!

Thanks for that, after migrating one of my debian machines to gentoo yesterday, this list gives me a good translation of commands that I am used to on debian!!

Thanks

Quick question, does the 'emerge unmerge <app>' command purge the config files for that application as well?

cheers

scooby

darktux · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 11:24 am Post subject:

scoobydu · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 1:18 pm Post subject:

darktux

Thx for the generic information, sure I've scanned alot of that information and couldn't find the answer I was looking for, perhaps there isn't a purge command to overide the /etc protection for an individual package.

I have the protection turned off for the rc.d stuff, but didn't want to take it off completely for obvious reasons.

cheers

scooby

darktux · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 1:27 pm Post subject:

scoobydu · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 1:47 pm Post subject:

hi darktux

I already have this setup: CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/wget /etc/rc.d" to allow these to get updated.

Ok, maybe I'm missing something. As far as I can see you are talking about protection for the /etc config files when an application is installed.

The etc-update appears to question whether you want a config file to overwrite the existing one and showsyou the differances.

> My question was about when an application is removed, and whether everything is purged completely when the package is removed or the /etc configs and local /home/<application> configs are all deleted?

Couldn't find that in the FAQ and docs ? ... I'll give it a try and see ..

Apologies for any confusion & thx for your patience

cheers

scoob

darktux · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 2:09 pm Post subject:

casper2601 · Posted: Mon Feb 17, 2003 4:55 pm Post subject:

Thats was exactly what i was looking for, thanks so much for the fast, and well explained response. I';m impressed but It really makes sense

Jeez what woudl I do without you guys

casper

xgecko · n00b Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 48 Location: Seattle, WA

Currious question, emerge -u world and emerge -u system only upgrade certain packages, how would I go about updating all packages installed on my system?

Firebirth · n00b Joined: 05 Jan 2003 Posts: 47