Check this
Using source mirrors
The mirrors listed on this page contain installation files such as LiveCDs, Gentoo ebuild repository snapshots as well as distfiles (the actual program code for our packages).
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I am checking out distfiles
Seems the have a collection of .tar.gz files. I expected a git repo.
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https://gentoo.osuosl.org/releases/amd64/binpackages/23.0/x86-64-v3/
Yes, they are on tar.gz
The link above is the place my laptop gets the binaries.
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So, here’s how things work with Gentoo when you build stuff from source.
There’s the portage tree (and other ebuild repositories), which contain the ebuild scripts. These scripts are instructions for portage on how to build and install the package in question.
Then there’s the distfiles, these are downloaded from another repository and contain the source code of the actual stuff you install. These are used by the ebuilds to compile the final programs you see appearing in your install.
Does this help?
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Yes thank you.
What I was unable to locate was the distfiles. … until @ihasama showed me in reply above.
I was thinking that Gentoo might get the source directly from upstream in the ebuild scripts… but no, it keeps a source repo as a collection of .tar.gz files.
Commonsense says Gentoo would have to keep a source repo, because they may make modifications to the source.
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They keep their changes to the sources with the ebuilds, as patch files.
Also, at some occasions the url for the sources from the ebuild is used, for example when none of the mirrors you selected have the source tar.gz yet. However, this happens rarely.
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