Overriding package.mask (netatalk-1.5.2)

[imadork]

If you like to live life dangerously, is there any way to override package.mask without actually editing the file?

I'm trying to install netatalk so my newly gentoo-ed PC can serve files to my Macs. netatalk-1.5_pre6 is the latest accessable version, but I've been having trouble getting it to work (I think shadow password support might have been broken in that release, or something). netatalk-1.5.2 is in the portage tree, but package.mask is blocking all netatalks > 1.5 as 'untested'.

I edited package.mask to get access to netatalk-1.5.2, and managed to get it working, but noticed that package.mask got overwritten at the next 'emerge rsync'. So that does not appear to be a permanent way to stay on the cutting edge.

Any ideas?

(FWIW, netatalk-1.5.2 seems to be working fine for me, but I haven't taxed it that much tonight.)

[dArkMaGE]

i have the same problem with trying to use the new alsa libs... itd be nice if we could override it like with USE settings in make.conf

[Guest]

You can force the issue, by giving a full path to the actual ebuild file itself. You might have to also use ebuild rather than emerge, I can't remember right now.

Note, I did this with a couple of packages and ended up breaking things, so I've stuck with the older versions for now.

If you're going to do this, make sure you check any comments in package.mask about the particular package you're installing, often there's a good reason why something has been masked.

[dArkMaGE]

yeah, with the alsa stuff its just masked out becuase if you accidently upgrade youll also have to recompile a bunch of apps to get them to load, but if you install the new ones from the start all should be good...
i figured out how to use ebuild, my problem is more when i try to emerge --update world and it trys to downgrade to the older version...