Emerging a specific version of a package, or emerging "the latest version of PHP 4.xxx instead of 5.xxx" seems like a pretty common task that I could not find under "Portage Features" or "Working with Portage." I also did not see this under "man portage". It would be a great help to add a short note about this to the portage docs. See this thread on the Forums: http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-383813.html Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3.
man emerge <snip> ebuild An ebuild must be, at a minimum, a valid Portage package directory name without a version or category, such as portage or python. Both categories and version numbers may be used in addition, such as sys-apps/portage or =python-2.2.1-r2. </snip>
http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=3&chap=3#doc_chap3 explains how to (un)mask packages. Relevant man pages are listed at the end of part3.
Thank you for your information. However, I still claim that most users will expect to find this information in the Portage documentation. It is confusing to have the information spread out between the Portage docs and the handbook (and gentoo.org lacks a search feature). I suggest consolidating the Portage documentation or providing a link to the document. I now know the info is in the man page, but it is easy to overlook the = sign that is used only when specifying the version.
use google with site:gentoo.org new users read the handbook handbook has a section 'working with portage' where this is located dont know what you mean by 'the portage documentation'
I was referring to the Portage links on http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/?catid=gentoo" which I just realized point to the handbook (this is not obvious). So I did look at the handbook, but I missed the version section because it never occurred to me to look under "mixing software branches" because that's not what I'm doing. I suggest adding a little note about specific versions to Part 2 Chaper 1 of the handbook. Also, it would be nice to clarify the site navigation links on the Docs page mentioned above.
so if we update the third chapter descriptiong in 'working with portage' to mention mixing branches/versions, that'd cover your concerns yeah ?
Yes, that would be good. Also, this might be outside your control, but I would suggest cleaning up the organization of the Gentoo System Documentation because it's not clear when the links point to the Handbook and when they point elsewhere. Thanks for helping.
