Manage Software

There are two ways to install and uninstall software, emerge and Discover. emerge is a CLI (Command Line Interface) tool used to install & update software packages (often the latest versions) native to Gentoo Linux. Discover is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) package manager, which has many packages available in the form of "flatpacks" which are slower to install and may not be the latest version of the package unlike packages found via emerge. Discover should only be used if a package isn't available via emerge

emerge

emerge is the default package manager. Use emerge to install, update, and generally maintain software packages on Gentoo. emerge should always be your first option when searching for software. For in-depth information: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Emerge

Open Terminal and Become Root

1. From the Task Bar select the “KDE Logo” to open the Start Menu, and type “Terminal” in the search bar
2. Type in su and press Enter to become root.
3. Enter the password and press Enter

The line text turn red to indicate that you are now root. You must be root to make changes via emerge.

Search & Install software via emerge

emerge provides commands to install packages onto your system including any dependencies. In this example package name is spotify.

1. Open Terminal and Become Root
2. Find avaliable packages using the eix command in the terminal. For example: eix spotify

The search results will appear in the terminal like this:

* gnome-extra/gnome-integration-spotify
     Available versions:  20140907-r2 {PYTHON_TARGETS="python3_9 python3_10"}
     Homepage:            https://github.com/mrpdaemon/gnome-integration-spotify
     Description:         GNOME integration for Spotify

* media-sound/spotify
     Available versions:  1.2.8^ms {libnotify local-playback pax-kernel pulseaudio}
     Homepage:            https://www.spotify.com/download/linux/
     Description:         Spotify is a social music platform

* media-sound/spotify-tray
     Available versions:  ~1.3.2-r1
     Homepage:            https://github.com/tsmetana/spotify-tray
     Description:         Wrapper around the Spotify client that adds a tray icon

Found 3 matches

3. Install the latest or a specific version:
   1. Install a package via emerge: emerge spotify
   2. (Optionally) install a specific package version via emerge ={package-name}-{version} Example: emerge =spotify-1.2.8

The terminal will show the install process and confirm once it's done:

Calculating dependencies... done!
Dependency resolution took 8.40 s.

>>> Installing (1 of 2) dev-util/patchelf-0.17.0::gentoo
>>> Installing (2 of 2) media-sound/spotify-1.2.8::gentoo
>>> Recording media-sound/spotify in "world" favorites file...
* Messages for package media-sound/spotify-1.2.8:
* Install additional packages for optional runtime features:
*   media-sound/spotify-tray for systray integration on non-Gnome DEs

* GNU info directory index is up-to-date.

Remove software via emerge

emerge provides commands to remove packages from your system, as well as to safely clean up any dependencies. emerge should not remove important packages that are needed for the system to function, without warning.

In this example package name is spotify.

1. Open Terminal and Become Root
2. Remove a package and it’s dependacies safely.
   1. emerge --deselect spotify
   2. emerge --depclean

Warning

Do not use the --unmerge(-C) option. This option can remove important packages that are needed for the system to function, without warning. source

Discover Store

Discover Store is the alternative package manager. Only search for applications here if they are not found in emerge. Discover Store is a flatpack based package manager. This means applications are large and slow to install. To learn more: https://apps.kde.org/discover/

Search & Install software via Discover Store

Discover Store provides a GUI to install packages onto your system including any dependancies.

1. Open the Discover store via taskbar
2. Search for the name of the application in the top right corner
3. Select the Application and the Install button to install
4. Progress will appear in the button left of the window unders tasks

Remove software via Discover Store

Discover Store provides a GUI to view/remove the installed packages onto your system. Dependancies should be automatically be removed with removing software. You can optionally remove user settings/data.

1. Find the Installed Tab of the store window
2. This will open a list of installed applications and it's dependancies
3. Select an Application from the list, clicking the remove button will remove it
4. Progress will appear in the button left of the window unders tasks
5. Refreshing installed page shows the application and it’s dependacies have been automatically be removed
6. The application will appear as avaliable to install once removal is complete