“eix” (short for “Emerge Info eXtended”) is a command line tool for searching and managing local Gentoo packages. It is an alternative to the standard Portage package manager commands such as “emerge” and “einfo” that come with Gentoo Linux.
eix is designed to provide a more powerful and efficient way to search for installed packages and their available versions, as well as package metadata like description, maintainer, and keywords. The eix command can be used to search for packages by name, description, keyword, or maintainer. It can also be used to search for installed packages, installed versions, and available versions.
One of the main advantages of eix over the standard Portage commands is its speed. The eix command uses pre-built package indexes, which makes searching for packages significantly faster than using the standard Portage commands.
eix Command Examples
1. Search for a package:
# eix package_name
2. Search for installed packages:
# eix --installed package_name
3. Search in package descriptions:
# eix --description "description"
4. Search by package license:
# eix --license license
5. Exclude results from search:
# eix --not --license license