currently, categories in an overlay directory must be a subset of those in /usr/portage (more exactly, those mentioned in /usr/portage/profiles/categories). it would be more convenient to be able to introduce own categories. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.mkdir ${PORTDIR_OVERLAY}/dummy-cat; cp somepackagedir ${PORTDIR_OVERLAY}/dummy-cat/ 2.echo "dummy-cat" >> ${PORTDIR_OVERLAY}/profiles/categories #(mkdir before) 3.emerge -p somepackagedir Actual Results: ebuilds beneath ${PORTDIR_OVERLAY}/dummy-cat are ignored Expected Results: !!! The short ebuild name "somepackagedir" is ambiguous. Please specify !!! one of the following fully-qualified ebuild names instead: orig-cat/somepackagedir dummy-cat/somepackagedir it's questionable whether there should be a "profiles" subdir in an overlay at all. maybe the "categories" file in the overlay should be somewhere else under a slightly different name, e.g. "overlay-cats".
You can use /etc/portage/categories. See man portage.
exactly
