[gentoo-user] Re: Applying patches without needing overlays and modifying ebuilds

[Nikos Chantziaras]

Saphirus Sage wrote:
> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>> Does anyone think that a mechanism of applying patches to a package
>> without the need to modify the ebuild of that package would be a
>> useful feature?  There are cases of useful patches that are not
>> accepted by the maintainers of the ebuild (because they have not been
>> accepted upstream or other reasons), forcing users to copy ebuilds in
>> their overlay and modifying the ebuild there.  This turns out to be a
>> hassle every time the package receives an update.
>>
>> What if we could just specify patches to be applied in, say,
>> /etc/portage/packages.patch with something like:
>>
>>   media-video/smplayer j-random-hack.patch
>>
>> and portage would apply that patch automatically?  That way, the
>> hassle of updating the ebuild of a package in which I use custom
>> patches would go away.  The patches could be searched for in a
>> designated directory, in this example maybe
>> /var/portage/patches/media-video/smplayer (or something else entirely.)
>>
>> Can someone think of a way to set up something like this?
>>
>>
> Patches are already stored in a files directory. For instance, it would
> be /var/portage/media-video/smplayer/files in your example. Maybe I'm
> missing some point you were trying to make.

The point I'm trying to make is applying patches without even touching 
the ebuild.