Editing Gentoo Linux (section)

===Portage===
{{Main|Portage (software)}}
[[File:Gentoo-portage-installing-darktable.png|alt=Installing software. In this example, Darktable will build with Flickr and geolocation support.|left|thumb|500x500px|Installing software. In this example, [[Darktable]] will build with Flickr and geolocation support.]]
Portage is Gentoo's [[software distribution]] and [[Package manager|package management system]]. The original design was based on the [[Ports collection|ports system]] used by the [[Berkeley Software Distribution]] (BSD) operating systems. The Gentoo repository contains over 19,000 packages.<ref name="Negus2006">{{cite book|author=Chris Negus|title=Live Linux CDs: Building and Customizing Bootables|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2S3eUgb39C8C&pg=PA224|year=2006|publisher=Prentice Hall Professional|isbn=978-0-13-243274-0|pages=224–|access-date=April 20, 2020|archive-date=March 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326011823/https://books.google.com/books?id=2S3eUgb39C8C&pg=PA224|url-status=live}}</ref>

A single invocation of portage's {{mono|emerge}} command can update the local copy of the Gentoo repository, search for a package, or download, compile, and install one or more packages and their dependencies. The built-in features can be set for individual packages, or globally, with so-called "USE flags".<ref name="Negus2006"/>

Pre-compiled binaries are provided for some applications with long build times, such as [[LibreOffice]] and [[Firefox|Mozilla Firefox]], but users lose the ability to customize optional features. There are configuration options to reduce compiling times, such as by enabling parallel compiling or using [[Pipeline (Unix)|pipes]] instead of temporary files.<ref>[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:X86/Installation/Stage#CFLAGS_and_CXXFLAGS CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212004956/https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:X86/Installation/Stage#CFLAGS_and_CXXFLAGS |date=February 12, 2018}}, Gentoo Linux x86 Handbook. December 13, 2014. Accessed February 10, 2018.</ref> Package compiling may also be distributed over multiple computers.<ref>[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Distcc Distcc] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212004954/https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Distcc |date=February 12, 2018}}, Gentoo Linux Wiki. February 2, 2018. Accessed February 10, 2018.</ref> Additionally, the user may be able to [[RAM drive|mount a large filesystem in memory]] to further speed up the process of building packages. Some approaches have drawbacks and are not enabled by default. When installing the same package on multiple computers with sufficiently similar hardware, the package may be compiled once and a binary package created for quick installation on the other computers.<ref>[https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Binary_package_guide Binary package guide] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180212004921/https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Binary_package_guide |date=February 12, 2018}}, Gentoo Linux Wiki. November 13, 2017. Accessed February 10, 2018.</ref>

On December 29th, 2023, it was announced that Gentoo will offer binary packages for download and direct installation. For most architectures, this will be limited to the core system and weekly updates. For amd64 and arm64 however the availability of binary packages reaches over 20 GB.
<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.gentoo.org/news/2023/12/29/Gentoo-binary.html |title=Gentoo goes Binary!}}</ref>