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3. Portage Features

• Portage Features
• Distributed Compiling
• Caching Compilation
• Binary Package Support

3.a. Portage Features

Portage has several additional features that makes your Gentoo experience even better. Many of these features rely on certain software tools that improve performance, reliability, security, ...

To enable or disable certain Portage features you need to edit /etc/make.conf's FEATURES variable. In several cases you will also need to install the additional tool on which the feature relies.

Not all features that Portage supports are listed here. For a full overview, please consult the make.conf man page:

$ man make.conf

To find out what FEATURES are default set, run emerge --info and search for the FEATURES variable or grep it out:

$ emerge --info | grep FEATURES

3.b. Distributed Compiling

Using distcc

distcc is a program to distribute compilations across several, not necessarily identical, machines on a network. The distcc client sends all necessary information to the available distcc servers (running distccd) so they can compile pieces of source code for the client. The net result is a faster compilation time.

You can find more information about distcc (and how to have it work with Gentoo) in our Gentoo Distcc Documentation.

Installing distcc

Distcc ships with a graphical monitor to monitor tasks that your computer is sending away for compilation. If you use Gnome then put 'gnome' in your USE variable. However, if you don't use Gnome and would still like to have the monitor then you should put 'gtk' in your USE variable.

# emerge distcc

Activating Portage Support

Add distcc to the FEATURES variable inside /etc/make.conf. Next, edit the MAKEOPTS variable to your liking. A known guideline is to fill in "-jX" with X the number of CPUs that run distccd (including the current host) plus one, but you might have better results with other numbers.

Now run distcc-config and enter the list of available distcc servers. For a simple example we assume that the available DistCC servers are 192.168.1.102 (the current host), 192.168.1.103 and 192.168.1.104 (two "remote" hosts):

# distcc-config --set-hosts "192.168.1.102 192.168.1.103 192.168.1.104"

Don't forget to run the distccd daemon as well:

# rc-update add distccd default
# /etc/init.d/distccd start

3.c. Caching Compilation

About ccache

ccache is a fast compiler cache. When you compile a program, it will cache intermediate results so that, whenever you recompile the same program, the compilation time is greatly reduced. In common compilations this can result in 5 to 10 times faster compilation times.

If you are interested in the ins and outs of ccache, please visit the ccache homepage.

Installing ccache

To install ccache, run emerge ccache:

# emerge ccache

Activating Portage Support

Open /etc/make.conf and add ccache to the FEATURES variable. Next, add a new variable called CCACHE_SIZE and set it to "2G":

CCACHE_SIZE="2G"

To check if ccache functions, ask ccache to provide you with its statistics:

# ccache -s

Using ccache for non-Portage C Compiling

If you would like to use ccache for non-Portage compilations, add /usr/lib/ccache/bin to the beginning of your PATH variable (before /usr/bin). This can be accomplished by editing /etc/profile:

PATH="/usr/lib/ccache/bin:${PATH}"

3.d. Binary Package Support

Creating Prebuilt Packages

Portage supports the installation of prebuilt packages. Even though Gentoo does not provide prebuilt packages by itself (except for the GRP snapshots) Portage can be made fully aware of prebuilt packages.

To create a prebuilt package you can use quickpkg if the package is already installed on your system, or emerge with the --buildpkg or --buildpkgonly options.

If you want Portage to create prebuilt packages of every single package you install, add buildpkg to the FEATURES variable.

More extended support for creating prebuilt package sets can be obtained with catalyst. For more information on catalyst please read the Catalyst Reference Manual and Catalyst Howto.

Installing Prebuilt Packages

Although Gentoo doesn't provide one, you can create a central repository where you store prebuilt packages. If you want to use this repository, you need to make Portage aware of it by having the PORTAGE_BINHOST variable point to it. For instance, if the prebuilt packages are on ftp://buildhost/gentoo:

PORTAGE_BINHOST="ftp://buildhost/gentoo"

When you want to install a prebuilt package, add the --getbinpkg option to the emerge command alongside of the --usepkg option. The former tells emerge to download the prebuilt package from the previously defined server while the latter asks emerge to try to install the prebuilt package first before fetching the sources and compiling it.

For instance, to install gnumeric with prebuilt packages:

# emerge --usepkg --getbinpkg gnumeric

More information about emerge's prebuilt package options can be found in the emerge man page:

$ man emerge

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