Portage Packages vs. Standard packages

[xTango]

Hi... I'm doing my first steps with Gentoo and I decided to keep it since it's exactly what I was looking for (I'm tired of building LFS).

I used this great Portage system to install several packages (vi in the first place ).
Now, I have lots of things on my HD previoulsy downloaded from their respective sites (like KDE 3, OpenOffice, etc.; all source) and -since I don't have a superfast internet connection- I was wondering if I can use those source code packages with Portage or I _must_ use packages specially prepared for Portage (like those on Gentoo or iBiblio FTP sites).

In case the answer is yes: how?

Thanks in advance

[ivancan]

Yes, correct me if I'm wrong:
as the portage compiles, it normally also does need to know some things, and the packages need to be ready for portage.
But nerver mind, you can gice it a try with your downloaded files.

emerge --pretend kde

to see what he would expect, but it shouldn't work. That's why gentoo is some work for the developers.

Hope this helps. - Sorry

[rphillips]

You can place those source packages into /usr/portage/distfiles/
portage will automatically find them, as long as they are the correct version numbers of the packages.