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trieu
n00b
Joined: 11 Oct 2002
Posts: 3
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 Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2002 4:54 am Post subject: Portage and new packages |
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Hello.
Does Portage allow an easy way to install the most up-to-date version of any particular application? For example, I note that the "Packages" section of the Gentoo site still lists Mozilla 1.0rc3, and not 1.1. After installing Gentoo, would it be easy to upgrade to Mozilla 1.1 or 1.2a?
From what I have read in the documentation and manuals, it looks as if Portage relies on whatever packages have been provided on the Gentoo servers (or its mirrors). This seems rather limiting for anyone who would like to install the very latest version of any particular application.
If I wanted to install the latest version of something (Mozilla or Galeon or whatever), how would I go about this in Gentoo? |
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rac
Bodhisattva
Joined: 30 May 2002
Posts: 6553
Location: Japanifornia
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| Posted: Sat Oct 12, 2002 5:12 am Post subject: Re: Portage and new packages |
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| trieu wrote: | | After installing Gentoo, would it be easy to upgrade to Mozilla 1.1 or 1.2a? |
1.1, yes. 1.2a, I haven't tried. There is a feature of Portage called the mask file, which resides in /usr/portage/profiles/package.mask. It lists versions of packages that should not normally be installed, because they are insufficiently tested or have caused problems for some other people. For example, versions of Mozilla >1.0.1 are currently masked because of some problems with Galeon 1.2.6.
It is a relatively trivial matter to ignore the mask and install Mozilla 1.1, if you wish to. An ebuild for it exists in the portage tree. There is no ebuild for 1.2a yet, at the time that I write this.
| Quote: | | From what I have read in the documentation and manuals, it looks as if Portage relies on whatever packages have been provided on the Gentoo servers (or its mirrors). |
This is not true. Each ebuild specifies a canonical download location for its sources. First, mirrors (that can be specified by users) are checked, to reduce the burden on the main site. If, however, a newer version of the sources are not yet propagated onto the main Gentoo source site at ibiblio, portage will automatically fall back to attempting to download it from the upstream source.
| Quote: | | If I wanted to install the latest version of something (Mozilla or Galeon or whatever), how would I go about this in Gentoo? |
If an ebuild exists, and it is not masked, just run "emerge packagename". If an ebuild exists, and it is masked, either edit the mask file and then run "emerge packagename" or just run "emerge /full/path/to/packagename.ebuild". If there's no ebuild, then it's a bit more complicated than that.
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Installing Gentoo
