Gentoo USE-Flags

Under Gentoo USE-Flags are used to signal the Package-Manager Portage exactly how one wants to have his system configured.

Setting of USE-Variables

USE-Variables are enabled by simply writing the name of the Variable and disabled by prefixing it with a Minus.

• enabled: bash-completion
• disabled: -bash-completion

There are more ways to set USE-Variables:

• In /etc/make.conf including it in the variable USE:

USE="..."

This USE-Variable is then set global, that means set for all packages.

• In /etc/portage/package.use für exactly one packet:

Category/Packagename ...

• In the variable USE directly before the start of emerge:

USE="..." emerge Package

An example for USE-Variables

The program cowsay has support for exactly one USE-Variable called bash-completion:

# emerge -pv cowsay

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!
[ebuild   R   ] games-misc/cowsay-3.03  USE="bash-completion" 0 kB

Total size of downloads: 0 kB

In this case the USE-Variable bash-completion is activated.

The call of

emerge cowsay

will install files to help complete the command line in Bash with [Tab].

Links

• More to this topic here
• Special USE-Flags for VDR