On Fri, 15 Nov 2013 21:10:41 +0100
Peter Stuge <peter@stuge.se> wrote:

> Tom Wijsman wrote:
> > !!! Enabling --newuse and --update might solve this conflict.
> > !!! If not, it might help emerge to give a more specific suggestion.
> > 
> > That together with ABI_X86="(64) (-32*) (-x32)" from the package
> > line makes it clear that it is trying to change that USE flag.
> 
> I disagree quite strongly with that statement. There is no clear
> message at all about the situation.
>
> The problem is that the USE flag is "hidden" on the package line as
> opposed to mentioned explicitly by portage. It's easy for software to
> print meaningful output based on the data it has while it is awkward
> for humans to scan lines and lines of output for parentheses with *s
> and -s.

Which is not the case here; as a single package is being emerged, the
output is rather short. So, it is as clear as how much you read of it.

The shortness of the output actually makes it much easier to scan.

The other case would be `emerge -uDN @world` which gives a lot of
output; but that case is different, as it wouldn't suggest the above.

Now imaging if that long output was very much longer; the longness of
that output, would be quite impossible to scan within the time one
would process the normal `emerge -uDN @world` output.

-- 
With kind regards,

Tom Wijsman (TomWij)
Gentoo Developer

E-mail address  : TomWij@gentoo.org
GPG Public Key  : 6D34E57D
GPG Fingerprint : C165 AF18 AB4C 400B C3D2  ABF0 95B2 1FCD 6D34 E57D