After realizing that most packages I was installing, I used
package.keywords and ~amd64, so I went ahead and jumped---I have started
using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS for ~amd64 in /etc/make.conf .   I think most of the
inconsistencies have been ironed out, but it has taken some days.  One
glaring problem involves ruby.   I need texlive, and I want to install
texlive 2011, and I had installed it; however, now ruby is standing in my
way.

On bugs.gentoo.org, I see some solutions, involving patches.  One is a
patch for ruby (dev-lang/ruby-1.8.7_p352 ).   The other is a patch for
glibc 2.14.1 .

I'm not sure how to handle this, but I'm pretty sure I don't want to mess
around with a personal overlay of glibc.

Now, unfortunately, after an emerge -avuD world, I have also run emerge
--depclean, which cleared out every package involved with texlive.  I think
texlive-pictures-2011 and texlive-science-2001, possible also others, are
depending on ruby.

I could also not find an accessible and up to date explanation of
installing texlive.

Can any one guide me towards understanding how to proceed?   I would rather
not spend the next week re-installing my system.   Perhaps I should back
out of ~amd64 to amd64?

Thanks,

Alan Davis