[gentoo-dev] is portage not so fresh?

[Sean Jensen_Grey <seanj@speakeasy.org>]

I am *REALLY* new to gentoo linux but I just installed (from the rc4 pre iso
image), and grabbed the portage tree with rsync then went into


cd /usr/portage/sys-apps/portage
ebuild portage-x.y.z.ebuild merge

and now I can't grab packages off of the cd...It looks like it wants all the
packages in a two level heirarchy. <category_name>/<package_name>

mount /mnt/cdrom
cd /mnt/cdrom/packages/All


All > pkgmerge ncftp-3.0.2.tbz2
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/sbin/pkgmerge", line 68, in ?
    mykey=mytbz2.getelements("CATEGORY")[0]+"/"+mypkg[:-5]
IndexError: list index out of range

==========================================

And I tried backing out the new version with a portage-unmerge since,
portage-maintain said I had two versions on my system. Don't do this. I think my
portage system is fubar'd up now.

All these bash scripts kinda smell like install shield for unix.  I had to go to
counseling about my experience with bash.

I like the use of python, I just wish it was more pervasive..

What is the best technique to get a working portage back on my system?

Can I make ebuild scripts in python instead of bash?

Thanks, Sean.