Knowledge Base:Missing keywords and keyword requests

Synopsis
Some software packages have a missing keyword for a specific architecture.

Here is an example of trying to emerge a package with no ~arm keyword.

Environment
Gentoo installations on architectures with less keyword coverage, new architectures, embedded systems or specialized applications. While amd64 is probably the most common architecture with the most keywords added, it's possible to install Gentoo by stage3 on at least 10 architectures, not including prefix or variants with other C libraries than glibc. See a list of supported architectures and a directory of experimental downloads. A Raspberry Pi is an example; it's perfectly possible to have a desktop environment or run server processes on this type of machine as with other architectures, even though the ebuild in Gentoo may not have a keyword at all.

Analysis
Lots of packages may compile on an architecture even if there is no ~arch keyword added to them, finding missing keywords and filing keyword requests on the bug tracker can help the Gentoo project extend support for different architectures. A package with an ~arch keyword means that the package has had some testing on that architecture, and would hopefully progress to being marked with a stable keyword (without the tilde prefix) once tested.

Resolution
To test packages with missing keywords for an architecture, add them to appending ** (a space and two asterisks) to the category/package name and (optionally) the version required. Then emerge the package again.

Lots more packages with missing keywords would need to be added in the same manner to the list if the package has a lot of dependencies. It's sometimes useful to keep these grouped in a file for that particular package or feature, if there are lots of them.

In some cases using the autounmask functions of portage to add the entries can make this process easier.

If the package compiles successfully and tests of the package succeed, open a bug to request keywords for the package(s).

* Product - Gentoo Linux * Component - Keywording * Hardware - Your architecture, for example arm or arm64. * Summary - "category/package ~myarch keyword request" * Bugzilla Keywords - CC-ARCHES, KEYWORDREQ * Description - "I use this package on myarch please add ~myarch keyword"

Thanks to Jannik2099 on IRC for a magic link to open a template for arm64 keyword requests, here are some extra links for other arches. Click the link to go to a template for a keyword request on Gentoo bugzilla for each architecture.


 * arm
 * arm64
 * x86

External resources

 * https://github.com/mgorny/nattka/#filing-keywordingstabilization-bugs

Acknowledgments

 * Jannik2099
 * sam_c
 * dmb

Much of this page was written from taking notes from the chat on IRC in gentoo-arm. Thanks.