Knowledge Base:Unmasking a package

Synopsis
Some software packages are masked out for usage. Any attempt to install such a package results in the warning from Portage that additional changes are needed before it can proceed:

Environment
Any Gentoo installation

Analysis
Next to the KEYWORDS settings in the ebuild, additional masking is available within Gentoo. Developers can explicitly mask out a package by mentioning it in the file within the profiles together with an explanation why the package is masked out. Common reasons are prerelease versions of a certain software package, no more upstream development, known security issues in the package, etc.

Using
Re-running the command with  automatically queues the required text file alteration:

As with all conf files, the final update is made by running dispatch-conf (or alternatively ):

Examine the diff output, press  to exit the pager (if you don't see commands at the end), and then   for   if you want to accept the alterations.

Finally, re-run the emerge one last time:

Using traditional files
Create the /etc/portage directory if it does not exist yet:

Add the required line:

Using directories
Create the /etc/portage/package.unmask directory if it does not exist yet:

Create a file (or files) for the unmask operations you want to perform. For instance, to unmask the  package as mentioned earlier:

Most masked packages are also not accepting generic keywords, so you might need to accept keywords for the packages too.