Introduction

Funtoo is really a great linux distribution, and is my new choice for these reasons:

  • Compilation from source: it’s longer than using binary packages but you can really fit you installation to your needs, not more, not less
  • Gentoo based: like Gentoo but with a better portage tree
  • Not forced to use Systemd: Systemd could be a good choice, but imho the project is immature, also it does thinks I don’t expect for an init system

I guess there’s other reasons to switch to Funtoo, realtime, the community, etc.

This post aim to create a minimal survival guide for packages management

Install and uninstall with emerge

emerge is the main application to “emerge” -download, unpack, patch, compile, install and merge- ebuild -the package script-, you can find information on the basic commands and configuration files management on funtoo emerge wiki. More if you RTFM indeed

Query your installed packages with equery

emerge is a great tools but doesn’t give you informations about installed packages, this is the equery purpose, informations about basic usage on gentoo equery wiki.

Search with eix

emerge has a search functionality, but it’s really slow and lack of efficiently and flexibility, that’s why eix is for, information about usage on gentoo eix wiki

Managing overlays with layman

Overlays are alternative package repositories, you could find many things is other overlays that are not in the main one called the Portage Tree.

If you plan to install something from an other overlay use layman to fetch, add, remove and update them, all information is available on gentoo layman wiki

Manage your patches with foobashrc

Sometimes you want to create a patch for a package, for example st configuration file is config.h so the better way to configure it, is to create a patch for st/config.h, there’s many other example where you can need patching applications.

This is exactly the foobashrc’s purpose, it’s really easy to use and so powerful, you don’t need to re-write the ebuild, it’s so cool, all information is available on funtoo foobashrc wiki.