§2023-09-21

• Welcome to Portage

¶Ebuilds

When Gentoo's documentation talks about packages, it means software titles that are available to the Gentoo users through the Gentoo repository. This repository is a collection of ebuilds, files that contain all information Portage needs to maintain software (install, search, query, etc.). These ebuilds reside in /var/db/repos/gentoo by default.

Whenever someone asks Portage to perform some action regarding software titles, it will use the ebuilds on the system as a base. It is therefore important to regularly update the ebuilds on the system so Portage knows about new software, security updates, etc.

¶Updating the Gentoo repository

In the Gentoo Linux distribution, both emerge --sync and emerge-webrsync are commands used to update the Portage package management system's repository information. However, they differ in how they fetch and synchronize this data.

emerge --sync:

This command synchronizes the Portage tree by updating the local Portage tree with the official Gentoo repository. It fetches metadata and ebuilds (package descriptions) from the official Gentoo repository and updates your local Portage tree with the latest versions. It is a full synchronization process, and it typically involves downloading a significant amount of data, which can be quite large. emerge-webrsync:

This command also synchronizes the Portage tree but uses a different approach. emerge-webrsync fetches the Portage tree using a compressed tarball (tar.gz) from the Gentoo website. It doesn't update the Portage tree directly from the official Gentoo repository as emerge --sync does. Instead, it downloads a pre-compiled snapshot of the Portage tree and extracts it locally. This method can be faster and more bandwidth-efficient than a full emerge --sync, especially if you have a slow or limited internet connection. In summary, emerge --sync performs a full synchronization of the Portage tree by fetching data directly from the official Gentoo repository, while emerge-webrsync uses a compressed tarball snapshot from the Gentoo website to update the Portage tree, potentially saving time and bandwidth. The choice between the two largely depends on your preferences and needs, as both methods achieve the same goal of updating the Portage tree.

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