use flags


3dfx Enable support for Voodoo chipsets, also called as 3DFX and TDFX
3dnow Use the 3DNow! instruction set
3dnowext Use the Enhanced 3DNow! instruction set
a52 Enable support for decoding ATSC A/52 streams used in DVD
aac Enable support for MPEG-4 AAC Audio
aalib Add support for media-libs/aalib (ASCII-Graphics Library)
accessibility Add support for accessibility (eg 'at-spi' library)
acl Add support for Access Control Lists
acpi Add support for Advanced Configuration and Power Interface
adns Add support for asynchronous DNS resolution
afs Add OpenAFS support (distributed file system)
aim Enable AIM IM protocol support
alsa Add support for media-libs/alsa-lib (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture)
altivec Add support for optimizations for G4 and G5/ppc970 processors
ao Use libao audio output library for sound playback
apache2 Add Apache2 support
apm Add APM (Advanced Power Management) support
aqua Include support for the Mac OS X Aqua (Carbon/Cocoa) GUI
atm Enable Asynchronous Transfer Mode protocol support
audiofile Add support for libaudiofile where applicable
audit Enable support for Linux audit subsystem using sys-process/audit
avahi Add avahi/Zeroconf support
avx Use the AVX instruction set
avx2 Use the AVX2 instruction set
ayatana Build in support for Ayatana notification using the libindicate or libappindicator plugin
bash-completion Enable bash-completion support
bcmath Add support for libbcmath
berkdb Add support for sys-libs/db (Berkeley DB for MySQL)
bidi Enable bidirectional language support
bindist Flag to enable or disable options for prebuilt (GRP) packages (eg. due to licensing issues)
blas Add support for the virtual/blas numerical library
bluetooth Enable Bluetooth Support
bootstrap !!internal use only!! DO NOT SET THIS FLAG YOURSELF!, used during original system bootstrapping [make stage2]
boundschecking Add 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 Add support for calendars (not using mcal!)
canna Add support for the Canna kana to kanji conversion engine
caps Use Linux capabilities library to control privilege
cdb Add support for the CDB database engine from the author of qmail
cdda Add Compact Disk Digital Audio (Standard Audio CD) support
cddb Access cddb servers to retrieve and submit information about compact disks
cdinstall Copy files from the CD rather than asking the user to copy them, mostly used with games
cdparanoia Enable cdparanoia (audio CD ripper) support
cdr Add support for CD writer hardware
cgi Add CGI script support
cjk Add support for Multi-byte character languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
clamav Add support for Clam AntiVirus software (usually with a plugin)
connman Add support for net-misc/connman
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 Enable cscope interface -- in vim for example
css Enable reading of encrypted DVDs
ctype Enable ctype functions
cups Add support for CUPS (Common Unix Printing System)
curl Add support for client-side URL transfer library
curlwrappers Add support for using curl in streams
custom-cflags Build with user-specified CFLAGS (unsupported)
cvs Enable CVS (Concurrent Versions System) integration
cxx Build support for C++ (bindings, extra libraries, code generation, ...)
dbi Enable dev-db/libdbi (database-independent abstraction layer) support
dbm Add support for generic DBM databases
dbus Enable dbus support for anything that needs it (gpsd, gnomemeeting, etc)
debug Enable extra debug codepaths, like asserts and extra output. If you want to get meaningful backtraces see https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Project:Quality_Assurance/Backtraces
dedicated Add support for dedicated game servers (some packages do not provide clients and servers at the same time)
dga Add DGA (Direct Graphic Access) support for X
directfb Add support for DirectFB layer (library for FB devices)
djvu Support DjVu, a PDF-like document format esp. suited for scanned documents
doc Add extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc). It is recommended to enable per package instead of globally
dri Enable direct rendering: used for accelerated 3D and some 2D, like DMA
dts Enable DTS Coherent Acoustics decoder support
dv Enable support for a codec used by many camcorders
dvb Add support for DVB (Digital Video Broadcasting)
dvd Add support for DVDs
dvdr Add support for DVD writer hardware (e.g. in xcdroast)
eds Enable support for Evolution-Data-Server (EDS)
emacs Add support for GNU Emacs
emboss Add support for the European Molecular Biology Open Software Suite
encode Add support for encoding of audio or video files
enscript Add enscript support to colourize code stored in the repository
evo Add support for mail-client/evolution
examples Install examples, usually source code
exif Add 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 Add framebuffer support for the console, via the kernel
ffmpeg Enable ffmpeg/libav-based audio/video codec support
fftw Use FFTW library for computing Fourier transforms
filecaps Use Linux file capabilities to control privilege rather than set*id (this is orthogonal to USE=caps which uses capabilities at runtime e.g. libcap)
firebird Add support for the Firebird relational database
flac Add support for FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec
flatfile Add dbm support for flat files
fltk Add support for the Fast Light Toolkit gui interface
fontconfig Support for configuring and customizing font access via media-libs/fontconfig
foomaticdb Add support for the foomatic printing driver database
fortran Add support for fortran
freetds Add support for the TDS protocol to connect to MSSQL/Sybase databases
freewnn Add support for FreeWnn kana to kanji conversion engine
frontbase Add support for the frontbase sql server
ftp Add FTP (File Transfer Protocol) support
gcj Enable building with gcj (The GNU Compiler for the Javatm Programming Language)
gd Add support for media-libs/gd (to generate graphics on the fly)
gdbm Add support for sys-libs/gdbm (GNU database libraries)
geoip Add geoip support for country and city lookup based on IPs
ggi Add support for media-libs/libggi (non-X video api/drivers)
gif Add GIF image support
gimp Build a plugin for the GIMP
git Enable git (version control system) support
glut Build an OpenGL plugin using the GLUT library
gmp Add support for dev-libs/gmp (GNU MP library)
gnome Add GNOME support
gnome-keyring Enable support for storing passwords via gnome-keyring
gnuplot Enable support for gnuplot (data and function plotting)
gnutls Add support for net-libs/gnutls (TLS 1.0 and SSL 3.0 support)
gphoto2 Add digital camera support
gpm Add support for sys-libs/gpm (Console-based mouse driver)
gps Add support for Global Positioning System
graphviz Add support for the Graphviz library
gsl Use the GNU scientific library for calculations
gsm Add support for the gsm lossy speech compression codec
gstreamer Add support for media-libs/gstreamer (Streaming media)
gtk Add support for x11-libs/gtk+ (The GIMP Toolkit)
gtkhtml Add support for gnome-extra/gtkhtml
guile Add support for the guile Scheme interpreter
gzip Compress files with Lempel-Ziv coding (LZ77)
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 Add support for the Hierarchical Data Format v5
hscolour Include coloured haskell sources to generated documentation (dev-haskell/hscolour)
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 Enable support for Imagemagick (image converter)
imap Add support for IMAP (Internet Mail Application Protocol)
imlib Add support for imlib, an image loading and rendering library
infiniband Enable Infiniband RDMA transport support
inifile Add dbm support for .ini files
inotify Enable inotify filesystem monitoring support
introspection Add support for GObject based introspection
iodbc Add support for iODBC library
ios Enable support for Apple's iDevice with iOS operating system (iPad, iPhone, iPod, etc)
ipod Enable support for iPod device access
ipv6 Add support for IP version 6
iwmmxt Add support for optimizations for ARM iwMMXt instructions
jabber Enable jabber IM protocol support
jack Add support for the JACK Audio Connection Kit
java Add support for Java
java6 Use Java 1.6 to build package with || ( reduced deps, 1.6 features, source/target 1.6 )
javascript Enable javascript support
jbig Enable jbig-kit support for tiff, Hylafax, ImageMagick, etc
jingle Enable voice calls for jabber
jit Enable just-in-time compilation for improved performance. May prevent use of some PaX memory protection features in Gentoo Hardened.
joystick Add support for joysticks in all packages
jpeg Add JPEG image support
jpeg2k Support for JPEG 2000, a wavelet-based image compression format
kde Add support for KDE (K Desktop Environment)
kdeprefix Makes a KDE prefixed install into /usr/kde/${SLOT} if enabled or into /usr (FHS compatible) otherwise
kerberos Add kerberos support
kolab Add support for the Kolab groupware server
kontact Enable support for the KDE personal information manager (kde-apps/kdepim*)
ladspa Enable the ability to support ladspa plugins
lame Prefer using LAME libraries for MP3 encoding support
lapack Add support for the virtual/lapack numerical library
lash Add LASH Audio Session Handler support
latex Add support for LaTeX (typesetting package)
lcms Add lcms support (color management engine)
ldap Add LDAP support (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol)
libass SRT/SSA/ASS (SubRip / SubStation Alpha) subtitle support
libav Prefer libav over ffmpeg whenever both are supported
libcaca Add support for colored ASCII-art graphics
libedit Use the libedit library (replacement for readline)
libffi Enable support for Foreign Function Interface library
libnotify Enable desktop notification support
libressl Use dev-libs/libressl as SSL provider (might need ssl USE flag), packages should not depend on this USE flag
libsamplerate Build with support for converting sample rates using libsamplerate
libwww Add libwww support (General purpose WEB API)
lirc Add 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 Add linux lm_sensors (hardware sensors) support
lua Enable Lua scripting support
lzma Support for LZMA (de)compression algorithm
lzo Enable support for lzo compression
m17n-lib Enable m17n-lib support
mad Add support for mad (high-quality mp3 decoder library and cli frontend)
maildir Add support for maildir (~/.maildir) style mail spools
matroska Add support for the matroska container format (extensions .mkv, .mka and .mks)
matrox Add Matrox MGA support to mplayer
mbox Add support for mbox (/var/spool/mail) style mail spools
memlimit Add memory usage limiting in supporting programs
mhash Add support for the mhash library
migemo Enable migemo support for Japanese
mikmod Add libmikmod support to allow playing of SoundTracker-style music files
milter Add sendmail mail filter (milter) support
mime Add MIME support
minimal Install a very minimal build (disables, for example, plugins, fonts, most drivers, non-critical features)
mmap Add mmap (memory map) support
mms Support for Microsoft Media Server (MMS) streams
mmx Use the MMX instruction set
mmxext Use the Extended MMX instruction set (intersection of Enhanced 3DNow! and SSE instruction sets) (3dnowext or sse in cpuinfo)
mng Add support for libmng (MNG images)
modplug Add libmodplug support for playing SoundTracker-style music files
modules Build the kernel modules
mono Build Mono bindings to support dotnet type stuff
motif Add support for the Motif toolkit
mozilla Add support for the Mozilla web-browser
mp3 Add support for reading mp3 files
mp4 Support for MP4 container format
mpeg Add libmpeg3 support to various packages
mpi Add 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
mssql Add support for Microsoft SQL Server database
mtp Enable support for Media Transfer Protocol
mule Add 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 Add mySQL Database support
mysqli Add support for the improved mySQL libraries
nas Add support for network audio sound
ncurses Add ncurses support (console display library)
neon Enable optimization support for ARM NEON processors
netboot Enable 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 Add 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 Old flag -- USE=cxx from now on
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 Add support/bindings for the Ocaml language
ocamlopt Enable ocamlopt support (ocaml native code compiler) -- Produces faster programs (Warning: you have to disable/enable it at a global scale)
oci8 Add 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 Add ODBC Support (Open DataBase Connectivity)
offensive Enable potentially offensive items in packages
ofx Enable support for importing (and exporting) OFX (Open Financial eXchange) data files
ogg Add support for the Ogg container format (commonly used by Vorbis, Theora and flac)
old-linux Add support for linux-2.4 and older
openal Add support for the Open Audio Library
openexr Support for the OpenEXR graphics file format
opengl Add 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
orc Use dev-lang/orc for just-in-time optimization of array operations
osc Enable support for Open Sound Control
oscar Enable Oscar (AIM/ICQ) IM protocol support
oss Add support for OSS (Open Sound System)
pam Add support for 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 Add support for PCMCIA slots/devices found on laptop computers
pcntl Add support for process creation functions
pcre Add support for Perl Compatible Regular Expressions
pda Add support for portable devices
pdf Add general support for PDF (Portable Document Format), this replaces the pdflib and cpdflib flags
perl Add optional support/bindings for the Perl language
php Include support for the PHP language
pie Build programs as Position Independent Executables (a security hardening technique)
plasma Build optional KDE plasma addons
plotutils Add support for plotutils (library for 2-D vector graphics)
png Add support for libpng (PNG images)
policykit Enable PolicyKit authentication support
portaudio Add support for the crossplatform portaudio audio API
posix Add support for POSIX-compatible functions
postgres Add support for the postgresql database
postscript Enable support for the PostScript language (often with ghostscript-gpl or libspectre)
ppds Add support for automatically generated ppd (printing driver) files
prefix Defines if a Gentoo Prefix offset installation is used
prelude Add support/bindings for the Prelude Intrusion Detection System
profile Add support for software performance analysis (will likely vary from ebuild to ebuild)
pulseaudio Add support for PulseAudio sound server
python Add optional support/bindings for the Python language
qdbm Add support for the qdbm (Quick Database Manager) library
qmail-spp Add support for qmail SMTP plugins
qt4 Add support for the Qt GUI/Application Toolkit version 4.x
qt5 Add support for the Qt 5 application and UI framework
quicktime Add support for OpenQuickTime
radius Add support for RADIUS authentication
raw Add support for raw image formats
rdesktop Add support for the remote desktop protocol, usually used to connect to Windows servers
readline Enable support for libreadline, a GNU line-editing library that almost everyone wants
recode Enable support for the GNU recode library
rss Enable support for RSS feeds
ruby Add support/bindings for the Ruby language
samba Add support for SAMBA (Windows File and Printer sharing)
sasl Add 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 Add support for scanner hardware (e.g. build the sane frontend in kdegraphics)
sdl Add support for Simple Direct Layer (media library)
seamonkey Add support for the Seamonkey web-browser
seccomp Enable seccomp (secure computing mode) to perform system call filtering at runtime to increase security of programs
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 Add persistent session support
sharedmem Add support for shared memory use
shorten Add support for the shorten audio compressor
simplexml Support for SimpleXML
skey Enable S/Key (Single use password) authentication support
slang Add support for the slang text display library (it's like ncurses, but different)
slp Add Service Locator Protocol support
smartcard Enable smartcard support
smp Enable support for multiprocessors or multicore systems
sndfile Add support for libsndfile
snmp Add support for the Simple Network Management Protocol if available
soap Add support for SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol)
sockets Add support for tcp/ip sockets
socks5 Add support for the socks5 proxy
sound Enable sound support
source Zip the sources and install them
sox Add support for Sound eXchange (SoX)
speex Add support for the speex audio codec (used for speech)
spell Add dictionary support
sqlite Add support for sqlite - embedded sql database
sqlite3 Add support for sqlite3 - embedded sql database
sse Use the SSE instruction set
sse2 Use the SSE2 instruction set
sse3 Use the SSE3 instruction set (pni in cpuinfo)
sse4_1 Use the SSE4.1 instruction set
ssl Add support for Secure Socket Layer connections
ssse3 Use the SSSE3 instruction set
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 versions of dynamic libraries as well
subversion Enable subversion (version control system) support
suid Enable setuid root program, with potential security risks
svg Add support for SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics)
svga Add support for SVGAlib (graphics library)
sybase Add support for the Sybase SQL Database Server
sybase-ct Add support for Sybase-CT
symlink Force kernel ebuilds to automatically update the /usr/src/linux symlink
syslog Enable support for syslog
systemd Enable use of systemd-specific libraries and features like socket activation or session tracking
sysvipc Support for System V-compatible inter-process communication
szip Use the szip compression library
taglib Enable tagging support with taglib
tcl Add support the Tcl language
tcmalloc Use the dev-util/google-perftools libraries to replace the malloc() implementation with a possibly faster one
tcpd Add 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 Add support for the Theora Video Compression Codec
threads Add threads support for various packages. Usually pthreads
tidy Add support for HTML Tidy
tiff Add support for the TIFF image format
timidity Build with Timidity++ (MIDI sequencer) support
tk Add support for Tk GUI toolkit
tokenizer Add support for the PHP file parser
truetype Add support for FreeType and/or FreeType2 fonts
uclibc Enable uclibc specific patches and build or link uclibc
udev Enable virtual/udev integration (device discovery, power and storage device support, etc)
udisks Enable storage management support (automounting, volume monitoring, etc)
unicode Add support for Unicode
upnp Enable UPnP port mapping support
upnp-av Enable UPnP audio/video streaming support
upower Enable power management support
usb Add USB support to applications that have optional USB support (e.g. cups)
v4l Enable support for video4linux (using linux-headers or userspace libv4l libraries)
vaapi Enable Video Acceleration API for hardware decoding
vala Enable bindings for dev-lang/vala
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
vdpau Enable the Video Decode and Presentation API for Unix acceleration interface
vhosts Add 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
vorbis Add support for the OggVorbis audio codec
wavpack Add support for wavpack audio compression tools
wayland Enable dev-libs/wayland backend
wddx Add support for Web Distributed Data eXchange
webkit Add support for the WebKit HTML rendering/layout engine
wifi Enable wireless network functions
win32codecs use win32codecs package for dll avi decoding support (wmv and what not)
wmf Add support for the Windows Metafile vector image format
wxwidgets Add support for wxWidgets/wxGTK GUI toolkit
X Add support for X11
x264 Enable h264 encoding using x264
xattr Add support for extended attributes (filesystem-stored metadata)
Xaw3d Add 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 Add 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 is mandatory if you work in multiple monitors setup
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)
xmpp Enable support for Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) formerly known as Jabber
xosd Sends display using the X On Screen Display library
xpm Add support for XPM graphics format
xscreensaver Add support for XScreenSaver extension
xsl Check/Support flag for XSL library (version 1)
xv Add in optional support for the Xvideo extension (an X API for video playback)
xvid Add support for xvid.org's open-source mpeg-4 codec
yahoo Enable Yahoo Messenger IM protocol support
yaz Add in optional support for the Z39.50 Protocol for Information Retrieval (YAZ)
zeroconf Support for DNS Service Discovery (DNS-SD)
zlib Add support for zlib (de)compression
zsh-completion Enable zsh completion support