Re: [gentoo-user] how to recover a portage that wasn't in use for very long time

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Sunday 10 May 2009 02:58:41 Alexey Luchko wrote:
> Hi!
>
> I have a gentoo installed, but I wasn't updating it since late 2007, I
> suppose.
> Today I've run emerge --sync. It worked! It's great ;)
>
> But then I've got the following collision. Obviously, a portage update
> is required. But it is confused by dependencies:
> colinux ~ # emerge portage --pretend --tree
>
> These are the packages that would be merged, in reverse order:
>
> Calculating dependencies... done!
> [nomerge      ] sys-apps/portage-2.1.6.11 [2.1.2.2]
> [ebuild     U ]  app-shells/bash-3.2_p39 [3.1_p17] USE="-examples% -
> plugins%"
> [ebuild     U ] sys-apps/portage-2.1.6.11 [2.1.2.2]
> [ebuild     U ]  dev-python/pycrypto-2.0.1-r6 [2.0.1-r5]
> [ebuild     U ]  sys-apps/sandbox-1.6-r2 [1.2.17]
> [ebuild  N    ]   app-arch/lzma-utils-4.32.7  USE="-nocxx"
> [ebuild  N    ]  app-admin/eselect-news-20080320
> [ebuild     U ]   app-admin/eselect-1.0.11-r1 [1.0.7] USE="-vim-syntax%"
> [ebuild     U ]  app-misc/pax-utils-0.1.19 [0.1.15]
> [blocks B     ] <sys-apps/portage-2.1.5 (is blocking app-shells/
> bash-3.2_p39)
> colinux ~ #

Once you sort that out, there's a whole host of other stuff to fix as well - 
expat, latest xorg and many more - all stuff that everyone else fixed a while 
ago and since forgot.

If you've never done this before, it's a good learning experience to do it 
(but only once). Thereafter, just reinstall - the pain of upgrading after 18 
months just isn't worth it

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com