Bugzilla Bug 123429

After an initial install, make.conf was set to ~x86.  After an upgrade of make,
emerge any package is broken because make fails with the same error:

emerge -e system
Calculating system dependencies ...done!
>>> emerge (1 of 110) sys-devel/patch-2.5.9-r1 to /
>>> md5 files   ;-) patch-2.5.9.ebuild
>>> md5 files   ;-) patch-2.5.9-r1.ebuild
>>> md5 files   ;-) files/digest-patch-2.5.9
>>> md5 files   ;-) files/patch-2.5.9-cr-stripping.patch
>>> md5 files   ;-) files/digest-patch-2.5.9-r1
>>> md5 src_uri ;-) patch-2.5.9.tar.gz
>>> Unpacking source...
>>> Unpacking patch-2.5.9.tar.gz to /var/tmp/portage/patch-2.5.9-r1/work
 * Applying patch-2.5.9-cr-stripping.patch ...                            [ ok
]
>>> Source unpacked.
./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
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
expr: error in regular expression matcher: Value too large for defined data
type
configure: error: expected an absolute directory name for --datadir:

This happens with most packages that require make.

Here is the emerge log from the update to ~

1140374715:  === (35 of 385) Post-Build Cleaning
(sys-apps/sysvinit-2.86-r4::/usr/portage/sys-apps/sysvinit/sysvinit-2.86-r4.ebuild)
1140374716:  >>> AUTOCLEAN: sys-apps/sysvinit
1140374721: === Unmerging... (sys-apps/sysvinit-2.86-r3)
1140374723:  >>> unmerge success: sys-apps/sysvinit-2.86-r3
1140374723:  ::: completed emerge (35 of 385) sys-apps/sysvinit-2.86-r4 to /
1140374724:  >>> emerge (36 of 385) sys-apps/coreutils-5.94 to /
1140374724:  === (36 of 385) Cleaning
(sys-apps/coreutils-5.94::/usr/portage/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-5.94.ebuild)
1140374725:  === (36 of 385) Compiling/Merging
(sys-apps/coreutils-5.94::/usr/portage/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-5.94.ebuild)
1140374923:  === (36 of 385) Post-Build Cleaning
(sys-apps/coreutils-5.94::/usr/portage/sys-apps/coreutils/coreutils-5.94.ebuild)
1140374924:  >>> AUTOCLEAN: sys-apps/coreutils
1140374929: === Unmerging... (sys-apps/coreutils-5.2.1-r7)
1140374932:  >>> unmerge success: sys-apps/coreutils-5.2.1-r7
1140374932:  ::: completed emerge (36 of 385) sys-apps/coreutils-5.94 to /
1140374932:  >>> emerge (37 of 385) sys-apps/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1 to /
1140374932:  === (37 of 385) Cleaning
(sys-apps/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1::/usr/portage/sys-apps/baselayout/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1.ebuild)
1140374933:  === (37 of 385) Compiling/Merging
(sys-apps/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1::/usr/portage/sys-apps/baselayout/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1.ebuild)
1140374953:  === (37 of 385) Post-Build Cleaning
(sys-apps/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1::/usr/portage/sys-apps/baselayout/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1.ebuild)
1140374954:  >>> AUTOCLEAN: sys-apps/baselayout
1140374959: === Unmerging... (sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.14-r5)
1140374961:  >>> unmerge success: sys-apps/baselayout-1.11.14-r5
1140374961:  ::: completed emerge (37 of 385)
sys-apps/baselayout-1.12.0_pre16-r1 to /
1140374961:  >>> emerge (38 of 385) sys-fs/udev-084 to /
1140374961:  === (38 of 385) Cleaning
(sys-fs/udev-084::/usr/portage/sys-fs/udev/udev-084.ebuild)
1140374962:  === (38 of 385) Compiling/Merging
(sys-fs/udev-084::/usr/portage/sys-fs/udev/udev-084.ebuild)
1140374985:  === (38 of 385) Post-Build Cleaning
(sys-fs/udev-084::/usr/portage/sys-fs/udev/udev-084.ebuild)
1140374986:  >>> AUTOCLEAN: sys-fs/udev
1140374991: === Unmerging... (sys-fs/udev-079-r1)
1140374994:  >>> unmerge success: sys-fs/udev-079-r1
1140374994:  ::: completed emerge (38 of 385) sys-fs/udev-084 to /
1140374994:  >>> emerge (39 of 385) sys-devel/make-3.80-r4 to /
1140374994:  === (39 of 385) Cleaning
(sys-devel/make-3.80-r4::/usr/portage/sys-devel/make/make-3.80-r4.ebuild)
1140374995:  === (39 of 385) Compiling/Merging
(sys-devel/make-3.80-r4::/usr/portage/sys-devel/make/make-3.80-r4.ebuild)
1140374999:  *** terminating.


Since I cannot emerge make as regular package this system is pretty screwed. 
Please advise.

emerge --info
Portage 2.0.54 (default-linux/x86/2005.1, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.6-r3,
2.6.15-gentoo-r1-70 i686)
=================================================================
System uname: 2.6.15-gentoo-r1-70 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre16
dev-lang/python:     2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2
sys-apps/sandbox:    1.2.11
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="-O2 -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu"
CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/env
/usr/kde/3.4/share/config /usr/kde/3.4/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="-O2 -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer"
DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles"
FEATURES="autoconfig distlocks sandbox sfperms strict"
GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org
http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo"
PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages"
PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp"
PORTDIR="/usr/portage"
SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage"
USE="x86 X alsa apm arts audiofile avi berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 crypt cups
curl eds emboss encode expat fam foomaticdb fortran gdbm gif gnome gpm
gstreamer gtk gtk2 idn imlib ipv6 jpeg kde lcms libg++ libwww mad mikmod mng
motif mp3 mpeg ncurses nls ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl png
python qt quicktime readline sdl spell ssl tcltk tcpd tiff truetype
truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev usb vorbis xml2 xmms xv zlib userland_GNU
kernel_linux elibc_glibc"
Unset:  ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, MAKEOPTS,
PORTDIR_OVERLAY

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