emerging a package already downloaded

[Weedman]

from what i have heard, emerge <package_name> will install the given package and its req's, and will keep a copy of the packages somewhere on the hdd.

1) is this correct?
2) if 1 is correct, is it possible to install a package on the hdd using emerge?

thanks
/weed

[Cabhan]

emerge <package> looks in the /usr/portage tree for the corresponding ebuild file, and executes the commands therein.

All source is stores in /usr/portage/distfiles.

That said, if you download the source for something, name it the same as the ebuild expects (look at the actual ebuild to find out), and put the source in /usr/portage/distfiles, you can install it without needing to download the source.

However, I'm not entirely sure if this answers your question.

[Weedman]

so your saying that if i copy the /usr/portage/distfiles/<package_name> directory (and the ebuild file) to another pc running the same version of gentoo, then all i need to do is go emerge <package_name> and it will install it without doensloading anything?

i think i understand. the reason i asked this is because i patched my 2.6.14 kernel i had laying around to 2.6.15 then i used it to install a kernel for gentoo, but i had to install the gentoo-sources package to get alsa working. i dont really want to download 40 odd mb every time i install gentoo.

thanks Cabhan!

/weed

[jhunholz]

Actually, the only thing you need to copy is the file from /usr/portage/distfiles from one pc to the other. Or if you want to be truly lazy, set up nfs and mount /usr/portage/distfiles of the first computer on top of the /usr/portage/distfiles on the second.

[Cabhan]

@Weedman

Pretty much. As jhunholz said, you don't actually need the ebuild file, as it is likely it's already on your computer (emerge --sync will automatically update your ebuilds to the most recent). However, if you are unable to run emerge sync, you may want to doublecheck that you have the ebuild, and if not, then copy that over as well.

Let's say that the package in question is mplayer-1.0_pre7-r1. The ebuild file would be /usr/portage/media-video/mplayer/mplayer-1.0_pre7-r1.ebuild. Make sure that you use the correct categories (i.e. media-video) if you copy the ebuild over.