From LQWiki
Portage is Gentoo's software package management system. It is loosely (or not so loosely depending on who one asks) based on the BSD ports collection. Its main strength being the ability to compile software from the source code, making Gentoo a fast and lean distribution. Customisation can be achieved by setting USE flags which describe which features should be compiled into the installed software. Portage also stores details related to installation of pre-compiled binaries, though is biased towards source installation.
The list of packages is regularly updated online, and the local portage database can be synchronised with Gentoo's rsync server version (using command emerge sync). This means a Gentoo installation always has the latest packages available, and can be updated seamlessly unlike other distributions.
It is composed of a series of flatfiles (located under /usr/portage) used by emerge to install software, containing information on where to download a package from, the package dependencies that must be satisfied, and how to compile the source code cleanly.
See also
External links
- Portage Man page (gentoo-wiki.com)
- Gentoo homepage (www.gentoo.org)
- Online Portage package database (packages.gentoo.org)
- Gentoo Wiki (gentoo-wiki.com)
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