What are some useful utils when using Gentoo Linux?

Solution 1:

dispatch-conf for handling modified configuration files.

Solution 2:

• eix-sync

  Since eix-test-obsolete was mentioned here, apart from eix itself, I thought I'd write a recommendation. This is the only way I sync my portage nowadays: It performs a sync, updates the eix database and prints out a diff all in one go. I recommend invoking it as eix-sync -C '-q', which suppresses the typically verbose output of emerge --sync.

  Package: app-portage/eix, of course :)

• q, together with its plugins such as quse, qlop or qsize

  Very useful set of portage-related functions, that can give similar information to equery and more. Part of app-portage/portage-utils.

• quickpkg

  A part of the core sys-apps/portage. Very helpful for building a tarball from an installed package if you want to temporarily downgrade/upgrade it for testing purposes. You get back to the packaged version using the -K (capital "K") switch to emerge. Tip: use quickpackage --include-config=y to include current configuration files in the package.

• demerge

  Lets you save the current list of installed packages in case you'd later want to revert. Kind of a "system checkpointing" tool.

  Package: app-portage/demerge

Solution 3:

eclean

• Utility for cleaning distfiles and binary packages.
• Usage example: eclean distfiles
• Usage example output: Cleans out the files in /usr/portage/distfiles. Pretty handy.

eix includes some neat obsolete checks like eix-test-obsolete which checks for bad entries in the /etc/portage/package.* files.