USE flags

• 3dfx - Enable support for Voodoo chipsets, also called as 3DFX and TDFX
• 3dnow - Adds support for 3dnow multimedia processor instructions
• a52 - Enables support for decoding ATSC A/52 streams used in DVD
• aac - Enables support for MPEG-4 AAC Audio
• aalib - Adds support for media-libs/aalib (ASCII-Graphics Library)
• accessibility - Adds support for accessibility (eg 'at-spi' library)
• acl - Adds support for Access Control Lists
• acpi - Adds support for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
• adabas - Adds support for the Adabas database engine
• adns - Adds support for the adns DNS client library
• afs - Adds OpenAFS support (distributed file system)
• aim - Enable AIM IM protocol support
• alsa - Adds support for media-libs/alsa-lib (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
• altivec - Adds support for optimizations for G4 and G5/ppc970 processors
• ao - Use libao audio output library for sound playback
• apache2 - Add Apache2 support
• apm - Adds APM (Advanced Power Management) support
• aqua - Include support for the Aqua / Carbon GUI
• atm - Enable Asynchronous Transfer Mode protocol support
• audiofile - Adds support for libaudiofile where applicable
• avahi - Add avahi/Zeroconf support
• bash-completion - Enable bash-completion support
• bcmath - Adds support for libbcmath
• berkdb - Adds support for sys-libs/db (Berkeley DB for MySQL)
• bidi - Enables bidirectional language support
• bindist - Flag to enable or disable options for prebuilt (GRP) packages (eg. due to licensing issues)
• birdstep - Adds support for the Birdstep Database Server
• blas - Adds support for the virtual/blas numerical library
• bluetooth - Enables Bluetooth Support
• bootstrap - !!internal use only!! DO NOT SET THIS FLAG YOURSELF!, used during original system bootstrapping [make stage2]
• boundschecking - Adds the bounds checking patch by Haj Ten Brugge, this will DISABLE the hardened PIE+SSP patches
• branding - Enable Gentoo specific branding
• bsf - Enable support for Apache Bean Scripting Framework (dev-java/bsf)
• build - !!internal use only!! DO NOT SET THIS FLAG YOURSELF!, used for creating build images and the first half of bootstrapping [make stage1]
• bzip2 - Use the bzlib compression library
• cairo - Enable support for the cairo graphics library
• calendar - Adds support for calendars (not using mcal!)
• canna - Adds support for the Canna kana to kanji conversion engine
• caps - Use Linux capabilities library to control privilege
• cdb - Adds support for the CDB database engine from the author of qmail
• cdda - Adds Compact Disk Digital Audio (Standard Audio CD) support
• cddb - Access cddb servers to retrieve and submit information about compact disks
• cdinstall - Copies files from the CD rather than asking the user to copy them, mostly used with games
• cdparanoia - Enables cdparanoia (audio CD ripper) support
• cdr - Adds support for CD writer hardware
• cgi - Add CGI script support
• chasen - Enable chasen (Japanese Morphological Analysis System) support
• cjk - Adds support for Multi-byte character languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
• clamav - Adds support for Clam AntiVirus software (usually with a plugin)
• coreaudio - Build the CoreAudio driver on Mac OS X systems
• cracklib - Support for cracklib strong password checking
• crypt - Add support for encryption -- using mcrypt or gpg where applicable
• cscope - Enables cscope interface -- in vim for example
• css - Enables reading of encrypted DVDs
• ctype - Enables ctype functions
• cups - Add support for CUPS (Common Unix Printing System)
• curl - Adds support for client-side URL transfer library
• curlwrappers - Adds support for using curl in streams
• custom-cflags - Build with user-specified CFLAGS (unsupported)
• cvs - Enable CVS (Concurrent Versions System) integration
• cxx - Builds support for C++ (bindings, extra libraries, code generation, ...)
• db2 - Enables support for IBM DB2 database server
• dbase - Adds support for dbase file format
• dbi - Enable dev-db/libdbi (database-independent abstraction layer) support
• dbm - Adds support for generic DBM databases
• dbmaker - Adds support for dbmaker database server
• dbus - Enable dbus support for anything that needs it (gpsd, gnomemeeting, etc)
• dbx - Adds database abstraction layer
• debug - Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/qa/backtraces.xml
• dedicated - Adds support for dedicated game servers (some packages do not provide clients and servers at the same time)
• dga - Adds DGA (Direct Graphic Access) support for X
• directfb - Adds support for DirectFB layer (library for FB devices)
• djvu - support DjVu, a PDF-like document format esp. suited for scanned documents
• doc - Adds extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc)
• dri - Enable direct rendering: used for accelerated 3D and some 2D, like DMA
• dts - Enables DTS Coherent Acoustics decoder support
• dv - Enables support for a codec used by many camcorders
• dvb - Adds support for DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting)
• dvd - Adds support for DVDs
• dvdr - Adds support for DVD writer hardware (e.g. in xcdroast)
• eds - Enables support for Evolution-Data-Server (EDS)
• emacs - Adds support for GNU Emacs
• emboss - Adds support for the European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite
• empress - Adds support for the Empress database server
• empress-bcs - Adds local access support for the Empress database server
• encode - Adds support for encoding of audio or video files
• enscript - Add enscript support to colourize code stored in the repository
• esd - Adds support for media-sound/esound (Enlightened Sound Daemon)
• esoob - Adds support for Easysoft OOD database
• evo - Adds support for mail-client/evolution
• examples - Install examples, usually source code
• exif - Adds support for reading EXIF headers from JPEG and TIFF images
• expat - Enable the use of dev-libs/expat for XML parsing
• fam - Enable FAM (File Alteration Monitor) support
• fastcgi - Add support for the FastCGI interface
• fbcon - Adds framebuffer support for the console, via the kernel
• ffmpeg - Enable ffmpeg-based audio/video codec support
• fftw - Use FFTW library for computing Fourier transforms
• firebird - Adds support for the Firebird relational database
• firefox - Build against Firefox instead of Seamonkey/Mozilla
• flac - Adds support for FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec
• flatfile - Adds dbm support for flat files
• fltk - Adds support for the Fast Light Toolkit gui interface
• fontconfig - Support for configuring and customizing font access via media-libs/fontconfig
• foomaticdb - Adds support for the foomatic printing driver database
• fortran - Adds support for fortran (formerly f77)
• freetds - Adds support for the TDS protocol to connect to MSSQL/Sybase databases
• freewnn - Adds support for FreeWnn kana to kanji conversion engine
• frontbase - Adds support for the frontbase sql server
• ftp - Adds FTP (File Transfer Protocol) support
• gcj - Enable building with gcj (The GNU Compiler for the Javatm Programming Language)
• gd - Adds support for media-libs/gd (to generate graphics on the fly)
• gdbm - Adds support for sys-libs/gdbm (GNU database libraries)
• gd-external - Use the external version of gd rather than the bundled one (possibly dangerous)
• geoip - Add geoip support for country and city lookup based on IPs
• ggi - Adds support for media-libs/libggi (non-X video api/drivers)
• gif - Adds GIF image support
• gimp - Build a plugin for the GIMP
• ginac - Adds sci-mathematics/ginac (symbolic math) support
• glut - Build an OpenGL plugin using the GLUT library
• gmp - Adds support for dev-libs/gmp (GNU MP library)
• gnome - Adds GNOME support
• gnome-keyring - Enable support for storing passwords via gnome-keyring
• gnuplot - Enable support for gnuplot (data and function plotting)
• gnustep - Adds integration with GNUstep environment
• gnutls - Adds support for net-libs/gnutls (TLS 1.0 and SSL 3.0 support)
• gphoto2 - Adds digital camera support
• gpm - Adds support for sys-libs/gpm (Console-based mouse driver)
• gps - Adds support for Global Positioning System
• graphviz - Adds support for the Graphviz library
• gsl - Use the GNU scientific library for calculations
• gsm - Adds support for the gsm lossy speech compression codec
• gstreamer - Adds support for media-libs/gstreamer (Streaming media)
• gtk - Adds support for x11-libs/gtk+ (The GIMP Toolkit)
• gtkhtml - Adds support for gnome-extra/gtkhtml
• guile - Adds support for the guile Scheme interpreter
• gzip - just to commit
• hal - Enable Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) support
• handbook - Enable handbooks generation for KDE4.
• hardened - activate default security enhancements for toolchain (gcc, glibc, binutils)
• hddtemp - Enable monitoring of hdd temperature (app-admin/hddtemp)
• hdf5 - Adds support for the Hierarchical Data Format v5
• ibm - Add support for IBM ppc64 specific systems
• iconv - Enable support for the iconv character set conversion library
• icq - Enable ICQ IM protocol support
• icu - Enable ICU (Internationalization Components for Unicode) support, using dev-libs/icu
• idn - Enable support for Internationalized Domain Names
• ieee1394 - Enable FireWire/iLink IEEE1394 support (dv, camera, ...)
• imagemagick - Enables support for Imagemagick (image converter)
• imap - Adds support for IMAP (Internet Mail Application Protocol)
• imlib - Adds support for imlib, an image loading and rendering library
• inifile - Adds dbm support for .ini files
• innodb - Adds innodb support for mySQL (transaction support)
• interbase - Adds support for Interbase database
• iodbc - Adds support for iODBC library
• ipod - Enable support for iPod device access
• ipv6 - Adds support for IP version 6
• jabber - Enable jabber IM protocol support
• jack - Adds support for the JACK Audio Connection Kit
• java - Adds support for Java
• java5 - Use Java 1.5 to build package || ( reduced deps, 1.5 features, source/target 1.5 )
• java6 - Use Java 1.6 to build package with || ( reduced deps, 1.6 features, source/target 1.6 )
• javascript - Enables javascript support
• jbig - enables jbig-kit support for tiff, Hylafax, ImageMagick, etc
• jingle - Enables voice calls for jabber
• joystick - Add support for joysticks in all packages
• jpeg - Adds JPEG image support
• jpeg2k - Support for JPEG 2000, a wavelet-based image compression format
• kde - Adds support for kde-base/kde (K Desktop Enviroment)
• kdeenablefinal - EXPERIMENTAL: KDE ebuilds will use the enable-final flag, yielding compilation speedups at the cost of heavy mem usage and potentially causing problems. We strongly discourage setting this
• kdeprefix - Makes a KDE prefixed install into /usr/kde/${SLOT} if enabled or into /usr (FHS compatible) otherwise
• kerberos - Adds kerberos support
• kolab - Adds support for the Kolab groupware server
• kontact - Enable support for the KDE personal information manager (kde-base/kdepim*)
• krb4 - Adds optional kerberos 4 compatibility support
• ladspa - Enables the ability to support ladspa plugins
• lame - Prefer using LAME libraries for MP3 encoding support
• lapack - Adds support for the virtual/lapack numerical library
• lash - Adds LASH Audio Session Handler support
• latex - Adds support for LaTeX (typesetting package)
• lcms - Adds lcms support (color management engine)
• ldap - Adds LDAP support (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
• libcaca - Add support for colored ASCII-art graphics
• libedit - Use the libedit library (replacement for readline)
• libgda - Adds GNOME Data Access support
• libnotify - Enable desktop notification support
• libsamplerate - Build with support for converting sample rates using libsamplerate
• libwww - Adds libwww support (General purpose WEB API)
• lirc - Adds support for lirc (Linux's Infra-Red Remote Control)
• livecd - !!internal use only!! DO NOT SET THIS FLAG YOURSELF!, used during livecd building
• lm_sensors - Adds linux lm_sensors (hardware sensors) support
• lua - Enable Lua scripting support
• lzo - Enables support for lzo compression
• m17n-lib - Enable m17n-lib support
• mad - Adds support for mad (high-quality mp3 decoder library and cli frontend)
• maildir - Adds support for maildir (~/.maildir) style mail spools
• mailwrapper - Adds mailwrapper support to allow multiple MTAs to be installed
• matroska - Adds support for the matroska container format (extensions .mkv, .mka and .mks)
• matrox - Adds Matrox MGA support to mplayer
• mbox - Adds support for mbox (/var/spool/mail) style mail spools
• mcve - Support for the MCVE credit card payment system
• memlimit - Adds memory usage limiting in supporting programs
• mhash - Adds support for the mhash library
• migemo - Enables migemo support for Japanese
• mikmod - Adds libmikmod support to allow playing of SoundTracker-style music files
• milter - Adds sendmail mail filter (milter) support
• mime - Adds MIME support
• minimal - Install a very minimal build (disables, for example, plugins, fonts, most drivers, non-critical features)
• mmap - Adds mmap (memory map) support
• mmx - Adds support for optimizations for Pentium MMX and Athlon class processors
• mng - Adds support for libmng (MNG images)
• modplug - Adds libmodplug support
• modules - Build the kernel modules
• mono - Build Mono bindings to support dotnet type stuff
• motif - Adds support for the Motif toolkit
• mozilla - Adds support for the Mozilla web-browser
• mp3 - Add support for reading mp3 files
• mp4 - Support for MP4 container format
• mpeg - Adds libmpeg3 support to various packages
• mpi - Adds MPI (Message Passing Interface) layer to the apps that support it
• mplayer - Enable mplayer support for playback or encoding
• msn - Enable MSN Messenger IM protocol support
• msql - Adds support for the MSQL database server
• mssql - Adds support for Microsoft SQL Server database
• mtp - Enable support for Media Transfer Protocol
• mule - Adds multi-language support to XEmacs
• multilib - On 64bit systems, if you want to be able to compile 32bit and 64bit binaries
• musepack - Enable support for the musepack audio codec
• musicbrainz - Lookup audio metadata using MusicBrainz community service (musicbrainz.org)
• mysql - Adds mySQL Database support
• mysqli - Adds support for the improved mySQL libraries
• nas - Adds support for network audio sound
• ncurses - Adds ncurses support (console display library)
• netboot - Enables network booting
• netcdf - Enable NetCDF data format support
• networkmanager - Enable net-misc/networkmanager support
• neXt - Enable neXt toolkit
• nis - Support for NIS/YP services
• nls - Adds Native Language Support (using gettext - GNU locale utilities)
• nntp - Add support for newsgroups (Network News Transfer Protocol)
• nocd - Install all files required to run the application without a CD mounted
• nocxx - Disable support for C++ (DON'T USE THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING)
• nptl - Enable support for Native POSIX Threads Library, the new threading module (requires linux-2.6 or better usually)
• nsplugin - Build plugin for browsers supporting the Netscape plugin architecture (that is almost any modern browser)
• ocaml - Adds support/bindings for the Ocaml language
• ocamlopt - Enables ocamlopt support (ocaml native code compiler) -- Produces faster programs (Warning: you have to disable/enable it at a global scale)
• oci8 - Adds Oracle 8 Database Support
• oci8-instant-client - Use dev-db/oracle-instantclient-basic as Oracle provider instead of requiring a full Oracle server install
• odbc - Adds ODBC Support (Open DataBase Connectivity)
• offensive - Enables potentially offensive items in packages
• ofx - Enable support for importing (and exporting) OFX (Open Financial eXchange) data files
• ogg - Adds support for the Ogg container format (commonly used by Vorbis, Theora and flac)
• old-linux - Add support for linux-2.4 and older
• openal - Adds support for the Open Audio Library
• openexr - Support for the OpenEXR graphics file format
• opengl - Adds support for OpenGL (3D graphics)
• openmp - Build support for the OpenMP (support parallel computing), requires >=sys-devel/gcc-4.2 built with USE="openmp"
• oracle - Enable Oracle Database support
• osc - Enables support for Open Sound Control
• oscar - Enable Oscar (AIM/ICQ) IM protocol support
• oss - Adds support for OSS (Open Sound System)
• pam - Adds support PAM (Pluggable Authentication Modules) - DANGEROUS to arbitrarily flip
• pch - Enable precompiled header support for faster compilation at the expense of disk space and memory (>=sys-devel/gcc-3.4 only)
• pcmcia - Adds support for PCMCIA slots/devices found on laptop computers
• pcntl - Adds support for process creation functions
• pcre - Adds support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions
• pda - Adds support for portable devices
• pdf - Adds general support for PDF (Portable Document Format), this replaces the pdflib and cpdflib flags
• perl - Adds support/bindings for the Perl language
• php - Include support for the PHP language
• plasma - Build optional plasma widgets that require kde-base/libplasma
• plotutils - Add support for plotutils (library for 2-D vector graphics)
• png - Adds support for libpng (PNG images)
• policykit - Use sys-auth/policykit to gain privileges
• portaudio - Adds support for the crossplatform portaudio audio API
• posix - Adds support for POSIX-compatible functions
• postgres - Adds support for the postgresql database
• ppds - Adds support for automatically generated ppd (printing driver) files
• prefix - Defines if a Gentoo Prefix offset installation is used
• prelude - Adds support/bindings for the Prelude Intrusion Detection System
• profile - Adds support for software performance analysis (will likely vary from ebuild to ebuild)
• pulseaudio - Adds support for PulseAudio sound server
• python - Adds support/bindings for the Python language
• qdbm - Adds support for the qdbm (Quick Database Manager) library
• qmail-spp - Adds support for qmail SMTP plugins
• qt3 - Adds support for the Qt GUI/Application Toolkit version 3.x
• qt4 - Adds support for the Qt GUI/Application Toolkit version 4.x
• quicktime - Adds support for OpenQuickTime
• radius - Adds support for RADIUS authentication
• raw - Add support for raw image formats
• rdesktop - Adds support for the remote desktop protocol, usually used to connect to Windows servers
• readline - Enables support for libreadline, a GNU line-editing library that almost everyone wants
• recode - Enables support for the GNU recode library
• rss - Enables support for RSS feeds
• ruby - Adds support/bindings for the Ruby language
• samba - Adds support for SAMBA (Windows File and Printer sharing)
• sapdb - Adds support for SAP DB
• sasl - Adds support for the Simple Authentication and Security Layer
• savedconfig - Use this to restore your config from /etc/portage/savedconfig ${CATEGORY}/${PN}. Make sure your USE flags allow for appropriate dependencies
• scanner - Adds support for scanner hardware (e.g. build the sane frontend in kdegraphics)
• sdl - Adds support for Simple Direct Layer (media library)
• seamonkey - Adds support for the Seamonkey web-browser
• selinux - !!internal use only!! Security Enhanced Linux support, this must be set by the selinux profile or breakage will occur
• semantic-desktop - Cross-KDE support for semantic search and information retrieval
• session - Adds persistent session support
• sharedext - Adds support for building shared extensions in PHP
• sharedmem - Adds support for shared memory use
• shorten - Adds support for the shorten audio compressor
• simplexml - support for SimpleXML
• skey - Enable S/Key (Single use password) authentication support
• slang - Adds support for the slang text display library (it's like ncurses, but different)
• slp - Adds Service Locator Protocol support
• smartcard - Enables smartcard support
• smp - Enable support for multiprocessors or multicore systems
• sndfile - Adds support for libsndfile
• snmp - Adds support for the Simple Network Management Protocol if available
• soap - Adds support for SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
• sockets - Adds support for tcp/ip sockets
• socks5 - Adds support for the socks5 proxy
• solid - Adds support for the Solid database engine
• source - Zip the sources and install them
• sox - Adds support for Sound eXchange (SoX)
• speex - Adds support for the speex audio codec (used for speech)
• spell - Adds dictionary support
• spl - Adds support for the Standard PHP Library
• sqlite - Adds support for sqlite - embedded sql database
• sqlite3 - Adds support for sqlite3 - embedded sql database
• sse - fast floating point optimization for PentiumIII+ class chips
• sse2 - faster floating point optimization for SSE2 capable chips
• ssl - Adds support for Secure Socket Layer connections
• startup-notification - Enable application startup event feedback mechanism
• static - !!do not set this during bootstrap!! Causes binaries to be statically linked instead of dynamically
• static-libs - Build static libraries
• subversion - Enable subversion (version control system) support
• suid - Enable setuid root program, with potential security risks
• svg - Adds support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
• svga - Adds support for SVGAlib (graphics library)
• sybase - Adds support for the Sybase SQL Database Server
• sybase-ct - Adds support for Sybase-CT
• symlink - Force kernel ebuilds to automatically update the /usr/src/linux symlink
• syslog - Enables support for syslog
• sysvipc - Support for System V-compatible inter-process communication
• szip - Use the szip compression library
• taglib - Enable tagging support with taglib
• tcl - Adds support the Tcl language
• tcpd - Adds support for TCP wrappers
• test - Workaround to pull in packages needed to run with FEATURES=test. Portage-2.1.2 handles this internally, so don't set it in make.conf/package.use anymore
• theora - Adds support for the Theora Video Compression Codec
• threads - Adds threads support for various packages. Usually pthreads
• tidy - Adds support for HTML Tidy
• tiff - Adds support for the TIFF image format
• timidity - Build with Timidity++ (MIDI sequencer) support
• tk - Adds support for Tk GUI toolkit
• tokenizer - Adds support for the PHP file parser
• truetype - Adds support for FreeType and/or FreeType2 fonts
• uclibc - Enable uclibc specific patches and build or link uclibc
• unicode - Adds support for Unicode
• usb - Adds USB support to applications that have optional USB support (e.g. cups)
• v4l - Enables video4linux support
• v4l2 - Enable video4linux2 support
• vanilla - Do not add extra patches which change default behaviour; DO NOT USE THIS ON A GLOBAL SCALE as the severity of the meaning changes drastically
• vcd - Video CD support
• vhosts - Adds support for installing web-based applications into a virtual-hosting environment
• videos - Install optional video files (used in some games)
• vim-syntax - Pulls in related vim syntax scripts
• vnc - Enable VNC (remote desktop viewer) support
• voodoo3 - Adds support for 3Dfx's Voodoo3 video chipset, else defaults to Voodoo4/5 support if not in USE
• vorbis - Adds support for the OggVorbis audio codec
• wavpack - Add support for wavpack audio compression tools
• wddx - Adds support for Web Distributed Data eXchange
• wifi - Enable wireless network functions
• win32codecs - use win32codecs package for dll avi decoding support (wmv and what not)
• wmf - Adds support for the Windows Metafile vector image format
• wxwidgets - Adds support for wxWidgets/wxGTK GUI toolkit
• wxwindows - Adds support for wxWidgets/wxGTK GUI toolkit (deprecated, use wxwidgets)
• X - Adds support for X11
• x264 - Enable h264 encoding using x264
• xattr - Adds support for extended attributes (filesystem-stored metadata)
• Xaw3d - Adds support for the 3d athena widget set
• xcb - Support the X C-language Binding, a replacement for Xlib
• xcomposite - Enable support for the Xorg composite extension
• xemacs - Add support for XEmacs
• xface - Adds xface support used to allow a small image of xface format to be included in an email via the header 'X-Face'
• xft - Build with support for XFT font renderer (x11-libs/libXft)
• xine - Add support for the XINE movie libraries
• xinerama - Add support for the xinerama X11 extension, which allows you to stretch your display across multiple monitors
• xinetd - Add support for the xinetd super-server
• xml - Add support for XML files
• xmlrpc - Support for xml-rpc library
• xmp - Enable support for Extensible Metadata Platform (Adobe XMP)
• xosd - Sends display using the X On Screen Display library
• xpm - Adds support for XPM graphics format
• xscreensaver - Adds support for XScreenSaver extension
• xsl - Check/Support flag for XSL library (version 1)
• xulrunner - Build native browser integration against xulrunner instead of firefox or seamonkey
• xv - Adds in optional support for the Xvideo extension (an X API for video playback)
• xvid - Adds support for xvid.org's open-source mpeg-4 codec
• yahoo - Enable Yahoo Messenger IM protocol support
• yaz - Adds in optional support for the Z39.50 Protocol for Information Retrieval (YAZ)
• zeroconf - Support for DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD)
• zlib - Adds support for zlib (de)compression
• zsh-completion - Enable zsh completion support