Globally defined USE flags

The globally defined USE flags for the system is in /etc/make.conf.

For instance, to remove support for KDE and QT but add support for ldap, the following USE can be defined in /etc/make.conf:

USE="-kde -qt3 -qt4 ldap"

Locally defined USE flags for individual package

Sometimes you want to declare a certain USE flag for one (or a couple) of applications but not system-wide. To accomplish this, you will need to create the /etc/portage directory (if it doesn't exist yet) and edit /etc/portage/package.use. This is usually a single file, but can also be a directory; see man portage for more information. The following examples assume package.use is a single file.

For instance, if you don't want berkdb support globally but you do want it for mysql, you would add:

dev-db/mysql berkdb

You can of course also explicitly disable USE flags for a certain application. For instance, if you don't want java support in PHP:

dev-php/php -java

Temporarily customize the USE flag setting

As an example we will temporarily remove java from the USE setting during the installation of seamonkey.

USE="-java" emerge seamonkey

USE flag documents

• http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?part=2&chap=2
• A list of available global USE flags can be found online or locally in /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc.
• A list of available local USE flags can be found locally in /usr/portage/profiles/use.local.desc.