Hello, all. Some time ago I wrote a small tool called install-mask. As the name suggests, it was intended to help with manipulating INSTALL_MASK. I think that its most important feature was ability to use pre-defined mask lists to easily mask unwanted directories without getting into the details. For example, you could do: install-mask -a systemd and it masked all directories related to systemd that were safe to be masked. The original solution had a few weak points, however, and since it was an external tool it didn't help most of the Gentoo users. For this reason, I wanted to implement the necessary bits in portage itself. Now kensington reminded me of it and offered to work on it, so I'd like to revive the topic. What we need is an agreement where to put the 'mask lists'. That is, we need a mapping of pre-defined keys to descriptions & lists of paths. I have two ideas. IDEA ONE I'm thinking of doing something similar to USE_EXPAND. That is, a structure like: - a top-level install-mask.desc that keeps mapping of keys to descriptions, - install-mask directory where each file name matches the install-mask key and file contents list all the paths. For example: install-mask.desc: bash-completion: app-shells/bash completions systemd: sys-apps/systemd unit files and auxiliary files install-mask/bash-completion: /usr/share/bash-completion install-mask/systemd: /usr/lib/systemd/system /usr/lib/systemd/user IDEA TWO A single file with ini-like syntax (alike layout.conf) that holds all the info. Such file can be found already in $PORTDIR/app-portage/install-mask/files/location-db.conf: Example contents: [systemd] path=/usr/lib/systemd/system path=/usr/lib/systemd/user description=systemd unit and auxiliary files. [bash-completion] path=/usr/share/bash-completion In both cases, the keys could be put into INSTALL_MASK in make.conf: INSTALL_MASK="systemd bash-completion" What are your thoughts? -- Best regards, Michał Górny