/etc/portage/package.accept_keywords

package.accept_keywords and package.keywords are files or directories of files containing definitions for per-package ACCEPT_KEYWORDS statements. They are useful for mixing unstable packages in with a normally stable system packages or vice versa.

These two locations allow ACCEPT_KEYWORDS to be augmented for single packages. If both package.accept_keywords and package.keywords are present, both will be used; values from package.accept_keywords will override values from package.keywords. The package.accept_keywords location is intended to replace the package.keywords location, since profiles support a different form of package.keywords which modifies effective KEYWORDS (rather than ACCEPT_KEYWORDS).

Format and examples

Comment lines begin with # (no inline comments).
One DEPEND atom per line followed by additional KEYWORDS.
Lines without any KEYWORDS imply unstable host arch.

FILE /etc/portage/package.accept_keywordspackage.accept_keywords example

# Always use unstable libgd
media-libs/libgd ~x86

# Only use stable mplayer
media-video/mplayer -~x86

# Always use unstable netcat
net-analyzer/netcat

Maintenance

Comments

When adding a USE flag or keyword, it is always helpful to leave a comment to why it was set in the first place.

FILE /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/scummvmp.a_k example

# Using ~amd64 package due to bug XXXX
games-emulation/scummvm

It is generally good practice to use the testing package until the stable version becomes greater than the testing version; then the system would switch back over to tracking the stable package.

FILE /etc/portage/package.use/engrampaExplicitly setting version example

# engrampa 1.28.1 has issues with extracting encrypted zip files
=app-arch/engrampa-1.28.2

~ARCH system-wide

A common trap new and experienced users fall into, is mixing too many stable and testing packages on their system.

If a user has over 100 packages in their /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords, then it's time to think if the user is managing their system correctly or not. One of the main issues of running such a large /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords is that Portage is much more likely to run into conflicts.

Warning
Once a system has been switched to testing, a user cannot simply just downgrade back to stable. Although this can be done, it is highly recommend to reinstall instead.

Some examples:

1. A user is running a stable system where they always want the latest GNOME, Firefox, LibreOffice and Kernel.

  In this case, the user would most likely be better off by switching to a full ~ARCH system.

2. A user is running a stable system and notice the next version of the desktop environment MATE has a fix to an issue they are currently having.

  In this example, the user would pin the MATE dependencies in /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/mate           (i.e. =mate-base/mate-1.30). This would mean the system would pull all the 1.30 versions from testing and once stable catches up, portage will start tracking the stable branch again.

3. A user has lots of ~ARCH keywords for games or Haskell

  These packages rarely get stable keyword so are fine to run with a stable system in most cases.

Additional information

Note: In addition to the normal values from ACCEPT_KEYWORDS package.keywords supports three special tokens:

* - Package is visible if it is stable on any architecture.
~* - Package is visible if it is in testing on any architecture.
** - Package is always visible (KEYWORDS are ignored completely).

Additional note: If you encounter the -* KEYWORD, this indicates that the package is known to be broken on all systems which are not otherwise listed in KEYWORDS. For example, a binary only package which is built for x86 will look like:

FILE games-fps/quake3-demo-1.11.ebuildBroken on all but x86 example

KEYWORDS="-* x86"

To accept this package anyway, use one of the other keywords in package.accept_keywords like this:

FILE /etc/portage/package.accept_keywordsAccept anyways example

games-fps/quake3-demo x86

Find obsolete entries

Using eix

Using app-portage/eix:

user $eix-test-obsolete

Redundant in /etc/portage/package.{,accept_}keywords:

... considered as REDUNDANT_IF_NO_CHANGE
[I] app-text/pdftk (3.0.0@09/06/2018): gcj-free version of pdftk written in Java
[I] dev-java/commons-lang (3.6(3.6)@03/30/2018): Commons components to manipulate core java classes
Found 2 matches

Using portpeek

Using app-portage/portpeek:

user $portpeek --keyword