Using the Gentoo Linux Portage package management system

[mandy]

Gentoo Linux is perhaps the most-used source-based Linux distribution. One secret to its success is the powerful and handy Portage package management system. While Gentoo comes with extensive documentation covering most aspects of using Portage, the techniques described in Gentoo's handbook and other documentation are not always the most effective ones. Here are some insider tips that can greatly increase your productivity.

Search faster

Before you install a package, you usually look for it via Portage's search capabilities. Portage's emerge utility has --search and --searchdesc options, but using them is not enjoyable, because they take a long time to run. That's why we've seen the emergence of third-party search front ends for Portage, such as esearch and eix. Their common idea is to use their own search indexes to speed up searches. When using either utility, you have to rebuild the index after updating the Portage tree, and after installing and uninstalling software.

Of the two, eix works faster and has more capabilities...

full article: http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/08/07/1952207