FAQ: Operation

• Get package information for a bug report
• What do those fancy arrows when merging things mean?
• Profiles Updates for Package Moves and Slot Moves
• I can't install */*::installed or */*::overlay->

Get package information for a bug report

Use cave info info to get general configuration information. Paludis will not show any configuration that is 'per-package' in this output. (This is different to emerge, which misleadingly shows an arbitrary global configuration no matter what.)

If you are submitting a bug report for a particular package, use cave info spec instead. If it's an installed package, spec can usually just be the qualified package name (for example, cave info sys-apps/paludis). If you're installing a package, you should instead specify an exact package ID (such as cave info =sys-apps/paludis-0.26.0_alpha12::paludis-overlay).

What do those fancy arrows when merging things mean?

They tell how each file is merged to root. They consist of three parts:

• The first part talks about what happened to the entry this one is replacing (if any):

  >

  The entry didn't exist

  =

  The entry was reused

  <

  The entry was unlinked

• The second part refers to how it was merged:

  >

  This entry was copied

  -

  Merged using rename()

  ^

  Merged by using rename() on a parent directory

  &

  Merged as a hardlink

• The third part refers to permissions and modes:

  >

  Nothing done

  ~

  Fixed ownership

  *

  Added set*id bits

  +

  Copied xattrs

Profiles Updates for Package Moves and Slot Moves

Gentoo includes support for repositories specifying that a package has moved (e.g. app-misc/foo is now called app-admin/foo) or changed slot (e.g. app-misc/foo:0 is now app-misc/foo:2). These are known as 'profiles updates'. Paludis will perform profiles updates after a sync.

Sometimes it is possible for renames to cause collisions. For example, if foo is being renamed to bar, and you have both foo and bar installed, Paludis will be unable to perform the update. In this situation, you should generally manually uninstall the older of foo or bar.

I can't install */*::installed or */*::overlay->

You can't install (or reinstall) a package ID that is already installed. The foo/bar-1.23 you have installed has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with any other foo/bar-1.23, and by specifying ::installed or ::overlay-> you are specifically saying "give me the installed ID".