The 0.9.8 ebuilds (all versions I think) disable the loading of the hal-detect module, if the hal use flag is not set: if ! use hal; then sed -i -e '/module-hal-detect/s:^:#: ; /module-detect/s:^#::' "${D}/etc/pulse/default.pa" fi This breaks on 0.9.8 since the default.pa provided by pulseaudio already has an .ifexists to load module-hal-detect only when it exists. The replace applied by the ebuild now doesn't only uncomment the load directive, but also the .ifexists directive. Since it doesn't remove the .else and .endif directives, this leaves default.pa with a syntax error and pulsaudio won't start. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: USE=-hal emerge pulseaudio pulseaudio
Fixed in 0.9.9 series.
