Gentoo Linux useful utilities

Question

I want to make a list of utilities that come in handy in Gentoo (general Linux tools available in all distributions also appreciated).

What tools and commands do you use and consider helpful in administration of a Gentoo server?

I will update the list with command from answers from time to time.

eclean

Utility for cleaning distfiles and binary packages.
Usage example: eclean distfiles
Usage example output: Cleans out the files in /usr/portage/distfiles. Pretty handy.
Package: app-portage/gentoolkit

eix

Very useful tool for getting information about a package. Similar to "emerge -s" but much faster and more precise.
Usage example: eix gentoolkit
Usage example output: Show information about package such as: available versions, masked versions, installed versions and description.
Package: app-portage/eix

eix-test-obsolete

Check system for obsolete, redundant, uninstalled entries in package.keywords, package.mask, package.unmask, package.use and package.cflags
Usage example: eix-test-obsolete
Usage example output: Shows non-matching entries, redundant entries, and uninstalled entries.
Package: app-portage/eix

equery

Another very useful tool for getting information about packages (listing package files, checking which files belong to which package and much more)
Usage example: equery b emerge
Usage example output: Show which packages installed a file called emerge
Package: app-portage/gentoolkit

genlop

Utility for extracting information about emerged ebuilds
Usage example: genlop -l --date yesterday
Usage example output: Show a list of packages that have been emerged yesterday
Package: app-portage/genlop

glsa-check

Checks system if it's affected by GLSAs (security issues)
Usage example: glsa-check -l affected
Usage example output: List of GLSA that the system is affected by.
Package: app-portage/gentoolkit

rc-update

Utility for managing (adding, deleting) runlevel scripts.
Usage example: rc-update add syslog-ng default
Usage example output: Adds syslog-ng to default runlevel.
Package: sys-apps/baselayout

revdep-rebuild

Scans libraries and binaries for missing shared library dependencies
Usage example: revdep-rebuild
Usage example output: Gather binaries and libraries information, check for dependencies, rebuild packages with missing dependencies
Package: app-portage/gentoolkit

Answer 1

eclean

• Utility for cleaning distfiles and binary packages.
• Usage example: eclean distfiles
• Usage example output: Cleans out the files in /usr/portage/distfiles. Pretty handy.

eix includes some neat obsolete checks like 'eix-test-obsolete' which checks for bad entries in the /etc/portage/package.* files.

There's a pretty good list of general update utilities here which may be useful. Not sure how up to date they are though.

Answer 2

rc-update

• utility for adding stuff in the boot list, allows different "runlevels" (priorities)
• usage example: rc-update -s shows the currectly active boot list
• usage example: rc-update add script_from_init_d default

Answer 3

etc-update, dispatch-conf, cfg-update. Whatever your preferred poison for handling modified configuration files.

Answer 4

• eix-sync

  Since eix-test-obsolete was mentioned here, apart from eix itself, I thought I'd write a recommendation. This is the only way I sync my portage nowadays: It performs a sync, updates the eix database and prints out a diff all in one go. I recommend invoking it as eix-sync -C '-q', which suppresses the typically verbose output of emerge --sync.

  Package: app-portage/eix, of course :)

• lafilefixer --justfixit

  Fixes *.la libtool archives, that can in some situations cause trouble.

  Package: dev-util/lafilefixer

• q, together with its plugins such as quse, qlop or qsize

  Very useful set of portage-related functions, that can give similar information to equery and more. Part of app-portage/portage-utils.

• quickpkg

  A part of the core sys-apps/portage. Very helpful for building a tarball from an installed package if you want to temporarily downgrade/upgrade it for testing purposes. You get back to the packaged version using the -K (capital "K") switch to emerge. Tip: use quickpackage --include-config=y to include current configuration files in the package.

• demerge

  Lets you save the current list of installed packages in case you'd later want to revert. Kind of a "system checkpointing" tool.

  Package: app-portage/demerge

Answer 5

The portage-utils suite with the q tool and it's many aliasses. It gives you much information on things like which files are in a package, what use flags are used, their descriptions and much more. Quite indispensible.

For configuration file updating, my tool of choice is dispatch-conf, which is part of the standard portage install and saves a lot of work updating unchanged config files compared to etc-update.

Answer 6

I hope everybody uses it nowadays, but "eselect" is a must. It's pretty much THE tool to handle which software version, which binutils, which toolchain, which opengl.. which whatever you use.

Answer 7

It's been a while since I stopped using Gentoo, but apart from all the utilities already suggested I used to like localepurge. It basically frees up disk space on the system by deleting unnecessary locale files and man pages.

Small use guide.