Put the portage tree on a diet ;-)

Update

I've done a far improved way to do that! The story has a continue...

Recently I’ve drammatically reduced the portage tree by getting rid of a bunch of categories I’m not going to use. To do so, you have to add the following to /etc/paludis/repositories/gentoo.conf:

sync_options = --exclude-from=/etc/paludis/repositories/gentoo-portage-exclude.list --rsync-option="--delete-excluded"

The gentoo-portage-exclude.list file is actually generated from gentoo-portage-exclude.list.skel by the script below:

    #!/bin/bash
    #
    # Regenerate exclude list from the skeleton file
    #

    skel=`dirname $0`/gentoo-portage-exclude.list.skel
    out=`sed 's,\.skel,,' <<<${skel}`

    echo -n "Generating $out from $skel"

    # 0) put DNE header
    cat <<EOF >$out
    #
    # DO NOT EDIT! THIS FILE WAS GENERATED FROM ${skel}
    #
    EOF

    # 1) cat skeleton to a new file
    cat $skel >> $out

    # 2) append exclude list for metadata/md5-cache/* for every line
    # except for some special dirs and metadata.xml files
    cat ${skel} \
      | grep -v ' eclass/' \
      | grep -v ' licenses/' \
      | grep -v ' profiles/' \
      | grep -v 'metadata.xml' \
      | grep -v '^.*/\*$' \
      | sed 's,\([+\-]\) ,\1 metadata/md5-cache/,' \
      >>$out

And here is my skeleton file w/ categories and profiles/architectures I’m not intended to use:

#
# Remove some categories I unlikely will use
#
- app-accessibility/***
- app-antivirus/***
- app-editors/emacs*/***
- app-editors/gvim*/***
- app-editors/qemacs*/***
- app-editors/xemacs*/***
- app-editors/vim*/***
- app-emacs/***
- app-forensics/***
- app-i18n/man-pages-*/***
- app-leechcraft/***
- app-pda/***
- app-vim/***
- app-xemacs/***
- dev-ada/***
- dev-dotnet/***
- dev-games/***
- dev-haskell/***
- dev-lisp/***
- dev-lua/***
- dev-ml/***
- dev-tcltk/***
- games-*/***
- gnome-extra/***
- gnustep-apps/***
- gnustep-base/***
- gnustep-libs/***
- gpe-base/***
- gpe-utils/***
- lxde-base/***
- media-plugins/vdr-*/***
- media-radio/***
- media-tv/***
- media-video/vdr-*/***
- net-dialup/***
- net-news/***
- net-nntp/***
- net-zope/***
- razorqt-base/***
- rox-base/***
- rox-extra/***
- sci-biology/***
- sci-calculators/***
- sci-chemistry/***
- sci-electronics/***
- sci-misc/***
- sci-physics/***
- sec-policy/***
- sys-cluster/***
- sys-freebsd/***
- sys-infiniband/***
- virtual/emacs*/***
- virtual/leechcraft*/***
- x11-plugins/***
- x11-wm/***
- xfce-base/***
- xfce-extra/***

#
# Do not sync some other (optional) stuff
#
- eclass/tests/***
- licenses/***

#
# Remove architectures I don't use
#
- profiles/arch/alpha/***
- profiles/arch/amd64-fbsd/***
- profiles/arch/arm/***
- profiles/arch/hppa/***
- profiles/arch/ia64/***
- profiles/arch/m68k/***
- profiles/arch/mips/***
- profiles/arch/powerpc/***
- profiles/arch/s390/***
- profiles/arch/sh/***
- profiles/arch/sparc/***
- profiles/arch/sparc-fbsd/***
- profiles/arch/x86/***
- profiles/arch/x86-fbsd/***
- profiles/default/bsd/***
- profiles/default/linux/alpha/***
- profiles/default/linux/amd64/10.0/***
- profiles/default/linux/amd64/13.0/desktop/gnome/***
- profiles/default/linux/amd64/13.0/selinux/***
- profiles/default/linux/amd64/dev/***
- profiles/default/linux/arm/***
- profiles/default/linux/hppa/***
- profiles/default/linux/ia64/***
- profiles/default/linux/m68k/***
- profiles/default/linux/mips/***
- profiles/default/linux/powerpc/***
- profiles/default/linux/s390/***
- profiles/default/linux/sh/***
- profiles/default/linux/sparc/***
- profiles/default/linux/x86/***
- profiles/embedded/***
- profiles/features/selinux/***
- profiles/hardened/***
- profiles/prefix/aix/***
- profiles/prefix/bsd/***
- profiles/prefix/darwin/***
- profiles/prefix/hpux/***
- profiles/prefix/linux/arm/***
- profiles/prefix/linux/ia64/***
- profiles/prefix/linux/ppc64/***
- profiles/prefix/linux/x86/***
- profiles/prefix/mint/***
- profiles/prefix/sunos/***
- profiles/prefix/windows/***
- profiles/releases/10.0/***
- profiles/releases/freebsd-*/***
- profiles/targets/desktop/gnome/***
- profiles/uclibc/***

This speedup sync a little, but the most important profit is I don’t have a lot of ~~unused~~ small files on my system (SSD w/ zipped btrfs) drive anymore.