Creating an ebuild repository

Creating a local overlay
See Handbook:AMD64/Portage/CustomTree

Adding an ebuild to the overlay
Now that the basic layout is in order, you can add an ebuild to the overlay. In this example, app-dicts/artha-1.0.2 (available at ). We will assume the ebuild is in the homedir of the user, and named.

You should now be able to install the package from your overlay with emerge.

Simple version bump of an ebuild in the local overlay
In theory one can update an ebuild to the next version number with a "simple version bump". Indicators that this is promising are:


 * Upstream fixed only minor bugs
 * Dependencies did not change
 * Upstream uses semantic version numbers and changed only the minor number
 * The ebuild file is short and does not use many patches

For the simplest bump place a copy of the ebuild in the local overlay and update the version number in the filename.

We assume you have prepared your local overlay in bobs-overlay already and want to bump to a newer version of.

Now test the installation:

Finished ebuilds should be added to the version control system. If using git, consider adding a pull request to GitHub.

Avoid a direct version bump
The direct version bump in the official tree is often suggested, but should be avoided, because:


 * All changes get lost on the next sync of the tree
 * User contributions should be separated from the official tree

Do not do this:

Crossdev
will place the ebuilds/categories it generates into one of four places in this order.
 * 1) An overlay specified on the command-line with the   option
 * 2) An overlay named 'cross-${CTARGET}'
 * 3) An overlay named 'crossdev'
 * 4) Finally, it falls back on the overlay having the lowest priority value in.

Most users will want to prevent crossdev from disturbing layman's overlays or the user's personal per-machine overlay (commonly created at ). The best solution is to create an overlay specifically for crossdev's use:

If the main Portage tree is synchronized by using Git, or any other method with Manifest files that do not include checksums for ebuilds, prevent "masked by: corruption" errors with:

Then instruct Portage and crossdev to use this overlay: