Portage

is Gentoo's package manager, and is installed by default as part of the stage3 install. See the Gentoo Handbook for more details.

Overlays
In addition to the official repository (colloquially known as "portage tree" because of its traditional placement in ), there are additional repositories which in Gentoo are called overlays.


 * Gentoo Overlays: Users' Guide
 * Layman homepage
 * Browse overlays

You can search through the ebuilds available in the overlays on http://overlays.gentoo.org/ by using eix.

Command-line interface: emerge
emerge is the command-line interface to the Portage system. This is how most users will interact with portage. with lots of options. For a complete list see its man page:

Below you see an exemplary invocation of. The options are shortcuts for ,   and. They trigger  to ask before proceeding, display the dependency tree and to be verbose. is a so called atom and refers to a portage package.

Relevant Gentoo Wiki pages

 * GCC optimization
 * Useful portage tools
 * Binary package guide
 * Portage tips
 * /etc/portage configuration files
 * Repository format
 * ebuild
 * PMS (Package Manager Specification)
 * Overlay
 * Category:Portage
 * Gentoolkit

Related sections of the Gentoo Handbook

 * A Portage Introduction
 * USE flags
 * Portage Features
 * Files and Directories
 * Configuring through Variables
 * Mixing Software Branches
 * Additional Portage Tools

Other official docs

 * q applets