Bug 108184 – Add information about how to emerge specific version(s) of a package

• Product: [OLD] Docs-user
• Status: RESOLVED INVALID

[Description Craig Finch 2005-10-05 08:12:06 UTC]

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.

[Comment 1 Jakub Moc (RETIRED) 2005-10-05 08:17:17 UTC]

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>

[Comment 2 Xavier Neys (RETIRED) 2005-10-05 08:28:36 UTC]

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.

[Comment 3 Craig Finch 2005-10-05 14:43:39 UTC]

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.

[Comment 4 SpanKY 2005-10-05 15:29:24 UTC]

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'

[Comment 5 Craig Finch 2005-10-06 10:27:03 UTC]

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.

[Comment 6 SpanKY 2005-10-06 13:17:25 UTC]

so if we update the third chapter descriptiong in 'working with portage' to
mention mixing branches/versions, that'd cover your concerns yeah ?

[Comment 7 Craig Finch 2005-10-21 19:52:12 UTC]

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.