How best to compile source code outside of emerge

[padukes]

Hi all,

I was wondering what the community thought was the best way to compile source code that isn't available via emerge. By 'best' I mean follows the pattern that code available through emerge uses so that my system stays consistent (unless you have a "better" definition of 'best'). The two cases I'm thinking of are:

1. Altering code that came from a *.tar that was downloaded from emerge
2. Compiling source that is not available at all through emerge

I think (1) is pretty easy because the tar already exists (somewhere) and I could extract it (somewhere), edit the appropriate file and then run the ebuild script (from somewhere). However, I don't know where any of the "somewhere"s are - (and I'm probably totally wrong on the steps anyway). As for (2) I'd guess it's similar but I'm not sure how.

Any help would be much appreciated!
P

[David_Escott]

probably the best way is to roll your own ebuild it usually isnt that difficult and if you dont care about other people being able to use it then your job is even easier.

And for method 1 I would unpack the source and then edit, then build it not unpack, edit, repack, merge

[padukes]

Thanks! - is there a default location where the tars are kept? What does it mean to roll my own ebuild?

Thanks agin,
P

[David_Escott]

skel.ebuild in /usr/portage is a good start

turn on the overlay in your make.conf

tarballs go in /usr/portage/distfiles

/usr/portage/eclass has useful scripts for many families of programs (gnome, vi, kde, etc)

And of course check bugs first to make sure someone else hasnt already made an ebuild.

[darktux]

If what you're compiling has a configure script, then you're better off doing:

[padukes]

Great! This is really helpful - one last question - do you think it's "bad" to have applications installed that did not go through the emerge process (e.g. ./configure; make; make install) - Will that mess up my dependencies?

Thanks even more,
P

[David_Escott]

DarkTux if your program only requires ./configure; make; make install; then all the more reason to make an ebuild since all you will have to do is define the d/l path. That said there is nothing wrong with not doing it by emerge but doing so does add a certain degree of consistency as well as giving you the ability to remove/upgrade very easily

[padukes]

Thanks! I appreciate the help!

-P

[darktux]