On Tuesday, November 03, 2015 12:29:01 Joakim Tjernlund wrote:
> Sometimes I have to move files from my layman overlays distfiles to
> /usr/portage/distfiles in orders to rebuild older stuff not in gentoo
> anymore.

Wouldn't it be better to fix the ebuilds in the overlay to point at a current 
URL for the tarball?

> Should not emerge search in distfiles where the ebuild resides?

No, the ebuild should specify where to get the tarball.

Not sure these comments are what you're looking for but it sounds like you 
just need to fix the ebuilds in your overlay to point at the distfiles in your 
overlay as a SRC_URI.

Just my 2¢, disregard if too assumptive.

Regards,

-- 
Alex Brandt
Software Developer for Rackspace and Developer for Gentoo
http://blog.alunduil.com