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Most GNU/LInux distros have an initialization script called rc.local. This script will be executed after all other init scripts, I mean, it will be run by the system at the end of the boot process . This will allow you to add certain programs so they can be executed at boot time after all system services are started.

Gentoo Linux does not provide such a file. Instead we have an equivalent script called /etc/conf.d/local.start where you can put all your initialization stuff. Even more, Gentoo provides an /etc/conf.d/local.stop where you can place… guess what?

The portage package suit tools provide a query tool that allows you to grab some information from your installed packages. Let’s see some usages of the equery utility.

For example to see all the files owned by a given package type:

equery files snort

Another example: show me the package that owns the top command.

equery belongs `which top`

Now tell me the USE flags for MySQL.

equery uses mysql

Show me the dependency tree for php.

equery depgraph php

For more information simply type…

equery -h

Thanks to Collin Starkweather I’ve discovered a nice utility in the Portage application tool suite: it is the genlop utility, a log parser for the emerge.log file.

As you probably know, emerge, the interface to Portage, logs its activity to /var/log/emerge.log. In some occasions it’s very interesting to watch the activity of the packages you’ve merged or unmerged.

The genlop utility provides useful information:

For example try this to see Apache’s emerge historical info:

genlop -u apache

Calculate merge time for Apache

genlop -f /var/log/emerge.log -t apache

Show full emerge history:

genlop -l

Note that genlog by default assumes that emerge.log is located in /var/log. If not, provide the full path: -f /path/to/emerge.log

To get usage info simply type:

genlop

The qpkg utlity is part of the Gentoo’s Gentoolkit administration scripts. qpkg allows you to manage the packages installed on your box. This tip will show you how to achieve common tasks using this utility.

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Imagine this situation when you try to emerge a package:

emerge xfree

Calculating dependencies …done!

!!! Error: the x11-libs/xft package conflicts with another package.
!!! both can’t be installed on the same system together.
!!! Please use ‘emerge –pretend’ to determine blockers.

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Sometimes you’ll want to emerge a set of packages but skip one of them. For example, if you…

emerge -p world

you could get something like this…

Calculating world dependencies …done!
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/gnuconfig-20030708
[ebuild U ] sys-devel/libtool-1.4.3-r1
[ebuild U ] sys-libs/db-1.85-r1
…..
[ebuild U ] dev-perl/Digest-MD5-2.26 [2.24]
[ebuild U ] dev-perl/Digest-SHA1-2.04 [2.02]

Now suppose that you want to emerge all of these packages but, say, Digest-MD5.

To do that, simply inject the desired package, so emerge thinks that it is already installed.

emerge -i dev-perl/Digest-MD5

According to the man pages…

Injecting a package inserts a 'stub' for that package so that Portage thinks that it is installed. It is handy if you need, say, a binary version of XFree86 for esoteric hardware, or you just like to roll your own packages. You must specify a category and particular version of a package for injecting.

Once you have installed a new package, say, MySQL you should configure Gentoo to automatically start the daemon at boot time.

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