User:Ris/3rdpartsw

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The Gentoo repository is a trove of easily installable, stable, free software - one of the largest in the world in fact.

Third party, or even user-written software is sometimes needed though, and Gentoo provides facilities to compile, install, and manage user custom packages.

Software on Gentoo is compiled, installed, and managed through Portage - a modern, advanced, package build, management and distribution system. Portage installs files to the root partition (though it is possible to install elsewhere). These files are tracked, to allow updates and uninstallation. This article Article description::covers what can be done to install third party software on Gentoo, notably using Portage.

Alternative repositories
The easiest way to install software not currently present in the Gentoo repository is to use a third party repository if someone has already made an Ebuild for the required software. Just add a repository then use Portage to as usual.

See Eselect/Repository for details.

Installing software from source
Using Portage is the recommended way to install all software system-wide on Gentoo. Portage will track all files installed to the root partition, as to allow clean removal and updates - as well as management with the system administration tools.

On a default installation, Portage will search for software in the Gentoo repository. Given, say a .tar.gz containing C source code, it is possible to write a custom Ebuild that will instruct Portage how to compile and install the package.

Containers
Docker is available on Gentoo and may be helpful for some software that is not available fin the repository.