Layman

USE flags[edit | edit source]

The sync-plugin-portage and git USE flags are especially important in newer versions of layman.

app-portage/layman sync-plugin-portage git

Please refer to portage projects page.

Emerge[edit | edit source]

Next install the layman package:

Configuration[edit | edit source]

Layman will create its configuration file in /etc/portage/repos.conf/.

Configure layman to use the repos.conf method in /etc/layman/layman.cfg. New installations of layman will probably have this already set correctly:

# Repository config types used by layman
# (repos.conf, make.conf)
conf_type : repos.conf

Create the /etc/portage/repos.conf/ directory if it does not exist yet:

If you have layman version 2.3.0 or greater installed, you can force a rebuild of layman's repos.conf files:

Basic invocations[edit | edit source]

The layman man page (see External resources) provides a full overview of the available functions. However, for most users, the following commands suffice for repository management activities.

To fetch and display a list of all the repositories available through official references:

To add a repository in the list generated by the local list:

To add an unofficial repository:

To remove a repository from the local list:

To update a specific repository:

To update all repositories:

Mountable repositories with layman-mounter[edit | edit source]

Since the release of layman version 2.2.0, support for squashfs repository types has been included. layman will interact with squashfs repository by mounting them as read-only on the filesystem. On the initial install of the squashfs repository, it will be mounted as read-only. However, after a reboot the repository will no longer be mounted and the ebuilds in that repository will not be accessible by the system.

In order to assist users in handling these mountable repositories, a utility was added that goes by the name of layman-mounter.

To find all repositories that are currently mounted, type:

To find all repositories installed by layman that can be mounted, type:

To mount the mountable repositories, type:

To unmount the repositories, type:

Setting repository priorities with Layman[edit | edit source]

As each ebuild repository is assigned a unique priority, layman provides a simple way of defining priorities for repositories it manages. For more information about repository priorities see the ebuild repository priorities.

The file /var/lib/layman/installed.xml contains some information about the repositories, among which is the priority attribute in the repo tag. The number there determines only the priority relative to the other repository entries, 50 is the default value. Larger numbers take priority over smaller numbers. Layman then analyses this file and sets the order of the repository entries in the PORTDIR_OVERLAY variable defined in /var/lib/layman/make.conf.

As the file /var/lib/layman/make.conf is automatically generated by layman based on the settings in /var/lib/layman/installed.xml, it is strongly recommended that only /var/lib/layman/installed.xml is used to set the priorities.

To add a personal repository, and to ensure that the repository has a higher priority, add the repository before /var/lib/layman/make.conf is sourced.

PORTDIR_OVERLAY="
/home/jdoe/gamerlay
/var/lib/layman/lisp
/var/lib/layman/Spring
${PORTDIR_OVERLAY}" #the variable defined in /etc/portage/make.conf is now expanded
                    #when /var/lib/layman/make.conf is sourced in /etc/portage/make.conf

However, this can be also "fooled" by defining the PORTDIR_OVERLAY in /etc/portage/make.conf after /var/lib/layman/make.conf has been sourced.

source /var/lib/layman/make.conf #this sources the PORTDIR_OVERLAY variable defined by layman.
                                 #however, the variable expanded by layman was empty
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/home/user/overlay ${PORTDIR} ${PORTDIR_OVERLAY}" #now the layman defined repositories take precedence,
                                                                   #but the user defined repository still has the lowest priority

This "trick" is merely an opportunity offered by shell variable expansion.

Adding custom repositories[edit | edit source]

To add repositories which are not listed when layman -L is ran, find their repository XML files and add them using the -o option under a name specified by the -a option.

Example: repositories.xml in brother-overlay

<?xml version="1.0" ?>

<repositories version="1.0">
	<repo priority="50" quality="experimental" status="unofficial">
		<name>larry</name>
		<description>nginx server for the barn computer from Larry the cow.</description>
		<homepage>https://github.com/gentoo/nginx-overlay</homepage>
		<owner>
			<email>larry@gentoo.org</email>
		</owner>
		<source type="git">https://github.com/gentoo/nginx-overlay.git</source>
	</repo>
</repositories>