You're going to install a 3rd party ebuild, that is currently not in the Portage tree. The package was proposed to the Gentoo Portage Team and we are hoping to see it in the official portage soon. You can see the complete intructions at this page: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Installing_3rd_Party_Ebuilds Setting Up Portage Overlay The first thing you should do is setup a PORTDIR_OVERLAY directory, you will need to add this line to your /etc/make.conf: File: /etc/make.conf PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" This directive will allow you to install your custom ebuilds in a way that will not be affected by emerge sync. Placing the Ebuilds First check that /usr/local/portage exists; if it does not, create it. You can use: # mkdir -p /usr/local/portage When placing the ebuild in /usr/local/portage, you must keep a similar structure to that of /usr/portage (category/program/program-version.ebuild). The category part must match one of the lines in /usr/portage/profiles/categories. In this case, if you want to install KLinpopup you would create: # mkdir -p /usr/local/portage/net-im Also make sure that program part of the directory name matches the name of the ebuild without the version number. In this case your ebuild is called klinpopup-0.3.4.ebuild, then you need to place this file in the directory /usr/local/portage/net-im/klinpopup/ Installing using the new ebuild When you go to install the package using the new ebuild, it will most likely be masked by keyword, so you should use the method of unmasking by keyword that is described in man portage. Currently we do this by opening the following /etc/portage/package.keywords file in your favorite text editor. Add the following line at the end of the file, replacing with the category the new ebuild is in (e.g. app-portage), with the name of the package (e.g. klinpopup). File: /etc/portage/package.keywords net-im/klinpopup Now enter the package directory in the local portage: # cd /usr/local/portage/net-im/klinpopup and run: # ebuild klinpopup-0.3.4.ebuild digest now you can run emerge -pv to see if everything goes well: # emerge -pv klinpopup Portage will tell you that a portage overlay is been used: Portage overlays: [1] /usr/local/portage For any kind of question, just send me an email to digital [dot] death [at] gmx [dot] it