Knowledge Base:Masking a package

Synopsis

Sometimes it is good for Portage to not take into account a certain package or a specific version of a package. Reasons for such actions could be because the new version fails to work or drops a functionality, etc.

Environment

Any Gentoo installation.

Analysis

Portage knows how to understand package masks. Users can mask any package they do not desire to have on their system. The scope of the mask is left up to the user; a mask can be applied to all versions of a package or to specific package versions.

Resolution

To mask versions newer than ati-drivers-12.6_beta_pre897:

Using /etc/portage/package.mask file:

root #echo ">x11-drivers/ati-drivers-12.6_beta_pre897" >> /etc/portage/package.mask

Using /etc/portage/package.mask/ directory:

Create the directory, if it does not exist yet:

root #mkdir -p /etc/portage/package.mask/

Create a file for the mask operation Portage will perform:

root #echo ">x11-drivers/ati-drivers-12.6_beta_pre897" > /etc/portage/package.mask/ati-drivers

See also

• Portage's package.mask file