It appears that it's only python scripts that are not executing. By sheer chance, I wanted to use 2 scripts that involved python. My "getcot" script invokes "getmail" which is a python script. emerge is also a python script. Maybe it's just python scripts that are the problem. Last minute update ================== I ran "eselect python set 1", and things appear to be working now. I'm not sure if it's my memory fading, but I seem to recall that before I ran "eselect python set 1", I got... [i3][root][~] eselect python list Available Python interpreters: [1] python2.7 [2] python3.1 I.e. neither one was selected. Is it possible that... * my selected version was python2.6 * I ran an update and removed the python 2.6 * but forgot to select 2.7 -- Walter Dnes