also means "testing". More often than not apps in "masked" simply havent
   been tested enough. Doesnt have to mean that this package will definately
   fail to build or even crash once you use it. However sometimes you need to
   use an obscure app which hasn't been included in portage until recently, and
   the only version available is masked. Although sometimes it can happen that
   a dependancy required by the app is still masked. Usually I would say, stick
   to the main portage tree as much as you can. Recompiling small apps, once
   theyre moved from "masked" to "stable" shouldn't be too big of a deal.
            ____________________________________________________

Gentoo: unmasking

   Klavs Klavsen ([94]klavs from EnableIT.dk)

   Using distcc is actually quite easy - one just has to ensure that if you use
   f.ex. hardened (stack smashing protection and friends) your gcc on all
   distcc machines (can even be a windows machine some of them) has to have the
   same abilities. You can even use distcc to do all the compiling on another
   machine, if you are installing on an older machine, it sometimes makes most
   sense to let someone else do the hard work :)

   The    /etc/portage/package.mask    package.unmask   package.use   and
   package.keywords files you really should know about - they are great tools
   to  make  portage do exactly what you want. Say you thrust that newest
   releases  of kde is stable enough for you to use (you can have several
   versions installed - so you can just select the on you want to use globally
   in /etc/rc.conf) you just add the kde packages to the package.keywords
   files. A search in the forums, will show you exactly what format to use :)
            ____________________________________________________

Gentoo: USE your own per-package options

   Frank Rodolf ([95]The LG Answer Gang)

   USE="-X" emerge links 

   Later, after you've installed X, you simply "emerge links" again, and it
   will rebuild itself with the X support. 

   I realize you are using an example where you only temporarily set $USE, but
   it might be worth noting that one can also set specific options for separate
   packages, in a more permanent way, using /etc/portage/package.use.

   In this file, one can put lines like these:

net-www/links -X
net-p2p/amule stats
x11-base/xorg-x11 -pie

   Some  other  interesting  files  in  that  directory are package.mask,
   package.unmask and package.keywords. The last one is, btw, the preferred way
   to add experimental packages, while running stable mostly.
            ____________________________________________________

Gentoo: I did it MY way...

   Kevin Williams ([96]kevin from bantamtech.com)

   The best way to implement a package differently than the package maintainer
   intended is to create a local overlay of the portage tree. This should be is
   the docs, but here's my quick notes:

    1. Uncomment the "PORTAGE_OVERLAY" option in /etc/make.conf
    2. mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/dev-php/php/files
    3. Copy      /usr/portage/dev-php/php/php/php-.ebuild     to
       /usr/local/portage/dev-php/php - I suggest changing the build version or
       release number to identify your version
    4. Tweak the ebuild file
    5. Run 'ebuild /usr/local/portage/dev-php/php/php-.ebuild digest'

   Now, if you use "emerge -pv php" you should see your build and a notation
   that the ebuild is coming from the /usr/local/portage overlay location. The
   biggest problem with all this is that now you are a package maintainer but
   it's on your local system. Keeping your changes in sync with new ebuilds
   from Portage can be a hassle. It's a good idea to request a new USE flag for
   your desired ./configure arguments in [97]http://bugs.gentoo.org and let the
   official package maintainer worry about it going forward.
            ____________________________________________________

Gentoo: share the load, build that code

   Klavs Klavsen ([98]klavs from EnableIT.dk)

   Using distcc is actually quite easy - one just has to ensure that if you use
   f.ex. hardened (stack smashing protection and friends) your gcc on all
   distcc machines (can even be a windows machine some of them) has to have the
   same abilities. You can even use distcc to do all the compiling on another
   machine, if you are installing on an older machine, it sometimes makes most
   sense to let someone else do the hard work :)
            ____________________________________________________

Another Gentoo tidbit - revised boot ISO available

   Brian Bilbrey ([99]bilbrey from orbdesigns.com)

   I'd seen people with problems a couple of times recently, but had no answer
   to the problem of non-booting but "good" (as in MD5SUM) images. It appears
   that the Gentoo folks came up with a possible solution, and did a respin of
   the 2004-2 minimal install ISO that was "rebuilt to solve the problem of
   certain buggy BIOS versions not booting the Minimal LiveCD."