Gentoo Configuration Tips

Gentoo is perhaps one of the better Operating Systems for documentation there is for want of an expression tons of it. This section is not aimed at any specific install on any given hardware so the tips provided will enable you to configure Gentoo.

Gentoo has its plus points, one of them is the "emerge" packaging system and it ability to configure from source and tailor that package for your machine, with whatever dependencies are available.

With a few simple commands you can manage your updates on Gentoo installation

• #> emerge --sync
  
• #> emerge -u portage
• #> emerge -vp system

By way of an explanation "--sync", synchronises your local list for available packages with the latest portage tree, it does not update the "portage".The portage is updated using the following command "emerge -u portage" the "-u" is for upadate.

Next is "emerge -pv system" strictly speaking the "-vp" is not required but is very useful to visualise what is about to be updated on the Gentoo system. The "-vp" means "verbose" & "pretend" this effectively shows what packages are about to be updated. If you are then happy with this list, you run "emerge system" .