When doing an `emerge -pf` portage requires root access or it gives the following errors: bash-2.05b$ emerge -pf development-sources Calculating dependencies ...done! !!! File system problem. (ReadOnly?) !!![Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/tmp/portage/development-sources-2.5.54' !!! Fetch for /usr/portage/sys-kernel/development-sources/development-sources-2.5.54.ebuild failed, continuing... !!! File system problem. (ReadOnly?) !!![Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/tmp/portage/development-sources-2.5.54' bash-2.05b$ su - Password: # emerge -pf development-sources Calculating dependencies ...done! http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo/distfiles/linux-2.5.54.tar.bz2 http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.5/linux-2.5.54.tar.bz2 # exit bash-2.05b$ emerge -V Portage 2.0.46-r4 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.1, glibc-2.3.1-r3) With `emerge -s` or `emerge -p` without the `--fetchonly` flag does not require root access.
This requires the ability to write into /var/tmp/portage Which is something that only root should be allowed. Now you probably could set PORT_TMPDIR to something in your user's homedir and that would let them do this, but I haven't tested it.
But shouldn't --pretend cause it to not actually download the files, and hence not require the writing of anything?
db fix
