[gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[walt <w41ter@gmail.com>]

On 07/06/2009 01:21 PM, Alan E. Davis wrote:
> Ncurses has disappeared, and the system is dead.  I think it is
> unrecoverable.  I had hoped to use a binary package, but for now,
> since I shut the machine down, it will not boot.
>
> Is this hopeless?  It happened during an emerge -uDvNa world

It's never hopeless unless the hard disk is damaged, e.g. from a
head crash or similar catastrophe.  The important thing is to avoid
trying random things without knowing what you're doing. You can
turn a simple recovery into a hopeless mess that way.

I find that I can usually get myself out of a 'hopeless' mess just
by downloading a live gentoo boot CD and using that to install a
recent gentoo snapshot.  You need a second (working) computer to
do that, of course.  (Everyone should have as many computers as
possible for exactly that reason :o)

Meanwhile, more info would help, as the others have already said.