udev-081 (and prior versions - but I won't check earlier versions) ships a file /etc/udev/udev.conf. In that file, there's the following setting: # udev_db - The name and location of the udev database. # NOTE: this should be somewhere that is writable before # / is mounted rw, like /dev ... udev_db="/dev/.udevdb" On my system, there's no /dev/.udevdb. Instead, there's /dev/.udev/db. Because of that, it seems to me that udev doesn't respect that setting. However, according to gregkh in bug #98416 comment #20 , udev needs that line (to startup, I assume). If it needs that line, it should use the contents :) Currently, it doesn't, which causes problems in other packages, like lm_sensors. See bug #98416 comment #15 and following. alexander@blatt ~ $ emerge info Portage 2.1_pre3-r1 (default-linux/x86/2005.0, gcc-3.4.5, glibc-2.3.6-r2, 2.6.15-suspend2-r3.041.via-im-kernel i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.15-suspend2-r3.041.via-im-kernel i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R) M processor 1.50GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0_pre15 distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] ccache version 2.4 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.4-r1, 2.4.2 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="-O2 -mtune=pentium-m -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" 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/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mtune=pentium-m -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/Gentoo/Portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig buildpkg ccache collision-protect distlocks sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS=" http://server.bei.digitalprojects.com/gentoo/ http://stuff.alexander.skwar.name/gentoo/ http://mirrors.sec.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo/ http://ftp-stud.fht-esslingen.de/pub/Mirrors/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/ http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/ ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo http://distfiles.gentoo.org/ " LANG="de_DE.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" LINGUAS="de" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/Gentoo/Portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/Gentoo/Portage/build" PORTDIR="/Gentoo/Portage/tree" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/Gentoo/Portage/local-tree/misc /Gentoo/Portage/local-tree/overlays/gentoo-de"SYNC="rsync://rsync.de.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 GAPING_SECURITY_HOLE X acpi alsa amd apm arts artswrappersuid async audiofile avi bash-completion bdf berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth bootsplash bzip2 cairo caps cardbus ccache cdb cdda cddb cdio cdparanoia cdr cdrom cle266 crypt css curl curlwrappers dbus devmap dillo divx4linux dlloader dvd dvdread emoticon esd ethereal exif expat fam fbcon fbdev ffmpeg firefox fping freetype gd gdbm gif glut gmp gnokii gnome gstreamer gtk gtk2 gtkhtml hal hpn icc id3 idn imagemagick imap imlib imlib2 insecure-drivers insecure-savers java javascript jikes jpeg kde kdeenablefinal lcms libedit libwww linuxthreads-tls logrotate lua lynxkeymap mad madwifi maildir matroska mbox ming mmx mmxext mng mozilla moznoirc mozsvg mp3 mpeg mpeg2 mpeg4 mplayer multicall ncurses netboot network new-login nfs nis nls no-old-linux no-suexec noantlr nobcel nobeanutils nobsf nobsh nocd nocommonslogging nocommonsnet nodrm nogg nogulm nojsch nojython nolog4j nomac nooro nopri norhino noxalan noxerces nozaptel nptl nsplugin offensive ogg oggvorbis openal opengl openssh pam_console pam_timestamp passfile password patented pccts pcmcia pcre perl perlsuid pic player png pnp qt quicktime rar readline real recode reiserfs ruby samba sdl sendfile sensord sftp slang sms spell spf sqlite sse sse2 ssl startup-notification stream subp subtitles suid svg symlink sysfs syslog tiff transcode truetype truetype-fonts trusted type1-fonts udev underscores unichrome unicode unsafe usb utf8 uudeview vim vim-pager vlm vorbis wifi win32codecs wma123 wmf x11vnc xine xinetd xml xml2 xmms xpm xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc zlib elibc_glibc kernel_linux linguas_de userland_GNU video_cards_via" Unset: ASFLAGS, CTARGET, LC_ALL
Confirmed for udev-079-r1, which introduced this bug for me. Before, I was using udev-070-r1, which used the correct location /dev/.udevdb. So the older udev either interpreted /etc/udev/udev.conf correctly or it already ignored that and used a default directory that accidentally matched the entry in udev.conf. Cannot check that since I never changed that file before.
*** Bug 98416 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Yes, you can not change the location of the udev database. 083 release has an updated config file reflecting this, and other changes.
