Gentoo masked packages

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Masked packages in Portage - Gentoo Linux[edit]

Masked packages[edit]

There are several reasons for the Gentoo developers to place a mask on a package.
For instance:

  • A package may not be entirely tested on your arch.
  • It may not be stable on your arch.
  • It might be buggy together with other packages on your system.

If you want to override the masking of the package, you just have to add a line to a specific file. There are two levels of masked packages.

  • Packages masked with a certain keyword
  • and/or hard masked packages

For a regular x86-system, the keyword would be x86. To unmask all packages with a certain keyword edit /etc/make.conf. The example will unmask all masked x86 packages.

File: /etc/make.conf
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86"

The easiest way to unmask a specific package, is to add a line using a method like this:

Code:
(1) echo "app-admin/sudo" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
(2) echo "app-admin/sudo" >> /etc/portage/package.unmask

Only use the second method if the package is hard-masked.

You can use specific operands, to control certain versions of a package to be masked/unmasked:

  • = - Use this when specifying a specific package to unmask, like x11-terms/rxvt/rxvt-2.7.10-r2
File: /etc/package.unmask
# Unmask only rxvt-2.7.10-r2 but not older or newer versions
=x11-terms/rxvt/rxvt-2.7.10-r2
# Unmask rxvt-2.7.10-r2 and any newer versions
>=x11-terms/rxvt/rxvt-2.7.10-r2
# Unmask up to rxvt-2.7.10-r2 but not any  newer versions
<=x11-terms/rxvt/rxvt-2.7.10-r2

Masking a package[edit]

If you have a package that is unstable on your system you can mask that package by adding it to /etc/portage/package.mask

The work on this article will continue. /Chris