Preface

As stated in the Handbook, as of December 2023, Gentoo officially supports installing binary packages.

Following this update, I installed a new Gentoo machine on a VPS, and this post summarizes how to use binary packages along the way.

binrepos.conf

In addition to /etc/portage/repos.conf/gentoo.conf, we now write /etc/portage/binrepos.conf/gentoo.conf for binary packages. (This example uses the KAIST mirror.)

[binhost]
priority = 9999
sync-uri = http://ftp.kaist.ac.kr/gentoo/releases/amd64/binpackages/17.1/x86-64/

Make binary default

If you want binary packages to be installed by default, add the following setting to /etc/portage/make.conf.

FEATURES="${FEATURES} getbinpkg"

Emerge

The portage package manager now provides options related to binary packages.

  • --getbinpkg, -g: Downloads binary packages from the remote binary package host. If one can’t be found, it downloads the regular (source-based) package.
  • --getbinpkgonly, -G: Similar to --getbinpkg, -g, but fails if a binary package can’t be found.

Error: OpenPGP signing and verification fail

During the first package installation after the switch, an integrity verification error may occur.

Fix it by running getuto, a tool that updates the trusted GnuPG/OpenPGP keys in your local environment.

# getuto

For more details, see the wiki page.