Bugzilla Bug 123368

When trying to emerge ebuilds, "./configure" breaks with error messages like
this:

./configure --prefix=/usr --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
--infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
--localstatedir=/var/lib --disable-gtk-doc --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu
configure: error: invalid feature name:

I tried enchant, sylpheed and mpeg4ip yet, with the results stated above. This
doesn't seem to affect all installations of the current Portage version (see
"emerge --info" output), since I have two machines with only one failing.

Please see also this forum thread:
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-p-3122976.html

My "emerge --info":

Portage 2.1_pre4-r1 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.6-r3,
2.6.14-swsusp2 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.14-swsusp2 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1700MHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre16
distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632)
[disabled]
ccache version 2.4 [enabled]
dev-lang/python:     2.4.2-r1
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.17
sys-devel/autoconf:  2.13, 2.59-r7
sys-devel/automake:  1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r1
sys-devel/binutils:  2.16.1-r1
sys-devel/libtool:   1.5.22
virtual/os-headers:  2.6.11-r3
ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86"
AUTOCLEAN="yes"
CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/env
/usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/kde/3/share/config
/usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control"
CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d"
CXXFLAGS="-march=pentium-m -O2 -pipe"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig ccache distlocks sandbox sfperms strict userpriv
usersandbox"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo/
http://linux.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/download/gentoo-mirror"
LANG="de_DE@euro"
MAKEOPTS="-j2"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 X Xaw3d a52 aac aalib accessibility acl acpi alsa apache2 arts
artworkextra async audiofile avi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth
bmp bzip2 bzlib caps cddb cdparanoia cgi cli composite crypt cups curl dga
directfb divx4linux dv dvd edl eds emboss encode escreen esd ethereal exif
fbcon ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb fortran ftp gd gdbm gif gimpprint glep gmp
gnokii gphoto2 gpm gs gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal hardenedphp iconv icq idea idn
imagemagick imap imlib imlib2 irda irmc jabber java javascript jce jikes john
jp2 jpeg jpeg2k kde kdeenablefinal lcms ldap libcaca libg++ libwww live lzo mad
madwifi maildir mbox memlimit mikmod mmx mng motif mozsvg mp3 mpeg mpeg2 mpi
mplayer musicbrainz mysql ncurses network nls nptl nsplugin offensive ogg
oggvorbis opengl operanom2 oscar oss pam pcmcia pdf pdflib perl php pic png pnp
posix ppds python qt quicktime radeon rdesktop readline real rtc ruby samba
sametime sdl slang smime sms spell sqlite sse sse2 ssl stencil-buffers strusted
svg svga tcltk tcpd theora tidy tiff truetype truetype-font truetype-fonts
type1-fonts udev uptimed usb userlocales uudeview videos vim-with-x vorbis wifi
win32codecs wxwin wxwindows xanim xcomposite xface xgetdefault xine xml xml2
xmms xosd xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc yahoo zlib elibc_glibc kernel_linux
userland_GNU video_cards_radeon"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS

> configure: error: invalid feature name:

You've most likely truncated the message. Also, try with locales set to C.

I already tried setting LANG and LC_ALL to "C", with no success (the packages
are compiling on another box with the same locale). The message I supplied was
truncated because the following errors differ. I will provide you the output
from enchant, sylpheed and mpeg4ip.

Before calling these commands, I set my locale:
export LC_ALL=C
export LANG=C

> locale
LANG=C
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_PAPER="C"
LC_NAME="C"
LC_ADDRESS="C"
LC_TELEPHONE="C"
LC_MEASUREMENT="C"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="C"
LC_ALL=C

> emerge --info | grep LANG
LANG="C"

enchant:
--------
>>> Compiling source in /var/tmp/portage/enchant-1.2.0/work/enchant-1.2.0 ...
 * Running elibtoolize in: enchant-1.2.0
 *   Applying portage-1.4.1.patch ...
 *   Applying max_cmd_len-1.5.0.patch ...
 *   Applying sed-1.5.6.patch ...
QA Notice: USE Flag 'doc' not in IUSE for app-text/enchant-1.2.0
 * econf: updating enchant-1.2.0/config.guess with
/usr/share/gnuconfig/config.guess
 * econf: updating enchant-1.2.0/config.sub with
/usr/share/gnuconfig/config.sub
./configure --prefix=/usr --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
--infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
--localstatedir=/var/lib --disable-gtk-doc --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu
configure: error: invalid feature name:

!!! ERROR: app-text/enchant-1.2.0 failed.
Call stack:
  ebuild.sh, line 1894:   Called dyn_compile
  ebuild.sh, line 941:   Called src_compile
  ebuild.sh, line 1609:   Called gnome2_src_compile
  gnome2.eclass, line 47:   Called gnome2_src_configure
  gnome2.eclass, line 41:   Called econf 'compile'

!!! econf failed

sylpheed:
--------
->>> Compiling source in /var/tmp/portage/enchant-1.2.0/work/enchant-1.2.0 ...
 * Running elibtoolize in: enchant-1.2.0
 *   Applying portage-1.4.1.patch ...
 *   Applying max_cmd_len-1.5.0.patch ...
 *   Applying sed-1.5.6.patch ...
QA Notice: USE Flag 'doc' not in IUSE for app-text/enchant-1.2.0
 * econf: updating enchant-1.2.0/config.guess with
/usr/share/gnuconfig/config.guess
 * econf: updating enchant-1.2.0/config.sub with
/usr/share/gnuconfig/config.sub
./configure --prefix=/usr --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
--infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
--localstatedir=/var/lib --disable-gtk-doc --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu
configure: error: invalid feature name:

!!! ERROR: app-text/enchant-1.2.0 failed.
Call stack:
  ebuild.sh, line 1894:   Called dyn_compile
  ebuild.sh, line 941:   Called src_compile
  ebuild.sh, line 1609:   Called gnome2_src_compile
  gnome2.eclass, line 47:   Called gnome2_src_configure
  gnome2.eclass, line 41:   Called econf 'compile'

!!! econf failed

mpeg4ip:
--------
>>> Compiling source in /var/tmp/portage/mpeg4ip-1.4.1/work/mpeg4ip-1.4.1 ...
dir: .
SDL appears to be installed
+ mkdir -p ./config
+ echo 'Do not remove this file or you might have to re-bootstrap'
+ ./configure --prefix=/usr --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
--infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
--libdir=/usr/lib --localstatedir=/var/lib --disable-warns-as-err
--enable-server --datadir=/usr/share/mpeg4ip --disable-ipv6 --disable-ppc
--disable-player --disable-mp4live --enable-xvid --disable-nas --enable-esd
--enable-alsa --enable-arts --disable-srtp --disable-a52 --disable-mmx
--disable-mpeg2dec --disable-id3tags --disable-v4l2 --disable-mp3lame
--disable-faac --disable-mp4live-alsa --disable-x264
configure: error: invalid feature name:
+ exit 1

!!! ERROR: media-video/mpeg4ip-1.4.1 failed.
Call stack:
  ebuild.sh, line 1894:   Called dyn_compile
  ebuild.sh, line 941:   Called src_compile

!!! configure failed

Applied additional info.

I also have this bug -- started recently, I think it was after an upgrade to
glibc, but I'm not positive if that was the cause.  I also keep binary packages
of glibc around, so I tried downgrading one -r with no change.

The message that the reporter is posting is not truncated, it says "with
invalid feature: " and that's it.

I've also had other similarly perplexing errors when trying to merge eject I
got:

./configure --prefix=/usr --host=i686-pc-linux-gnu --mandir=/usr/share/man
--infodir=/usr/share/info --datadir=/usr/share --sysconfdir=/etc
--localstatedir=/var/lib --build=i686-pc-linux-gnu
configure: error: expected an absolute directory name for --datadir: 

I think this is a problem with the econf script, as I have not had similar
problems with compiling or configuring packages by hand, and even going to the
working directories of the effected packages I was able to configure them by
hand with similar options.

Like mentioned in the forum thread, donwgrading coreutils to 5.93 (made a
binary package on my working box) fixes the problem for me. The question
remains why my other box doesn't come up with any problems using coreutils
5.94.

Does seem to be coreutils. In the case I've debugged configure runs this:

expr "x--enable-nls" : 'x-*enable-\(.*\)'

which should print "nls" but instead prints nothing, greatly confusing
configure. This is probably related to bug 123342.

I got hit by this bug also and was unable to downgrade the coreutils.

To work around the bug I did.

echo =sys-apps/coreutils-5.94 >> /etc/portage/package.mask
cd /bin
mv expr expr.crappy
cp busybox expr
emerge coreutils

For those of you that hit this bug on i686-glibc hosts and dont have a busybox
installed (you should have one)

Reference binary packages can be found here.
export \

PORTAGE_BINHOST=ftp://tinderbox.x86.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/x86/2005.1/All

emrerge -g coreutils

*** Bug 123388 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 123342 ***