Emerge
From Free net encyclopedia
The emerge command-line tool is the heart of the Gentoo Linux package management system known as Portage. The command is fairly complex with many options and modifiers. It is written in the Python programming language. The emerge tool is the most important utility to access the features of Portage from the command line.
The program calculates and manages dependencies, executes ebuilds and maintains the local Portage tree and database of installed packages. The compilation settings used by ebuilds can be changed through the CFLAGS environment variable, based on the specifications of the individual computer and on the user's desire for optimization. The emerge utility executes ebuilds in a sandbox environment. This way the system is protected from software executed by the ebuild and resulting binaries are only merged after a successful build and sandboxed install.
What emerge installs as dependencies is affected by the USE flag-settings. They decide which optional features will be included when installing or upgrading an application. The emerge command can also be used to download and install binary files, although some people argue that using binary packages is not taking full advantage of Portage's power since it foregoes the compile-time optimization options normally available.