My system is set up such that the distfiles directory is on a separate partition, and thus /usr/portage/distfiles is actually a symlink to another directory. Every now and again (I think when portage is updated) the symlink is replaced by a directory, and thus all the existing files in distfiles are invisible to portage.
this has come up before ... technically it is invalid since you should be modifying /etc/make.conf to reflect a changed distfiles path ...
you are right Spanky this is INVALID Keith: update to the latest portage, etc-update your make.conf and read from make.conf # DISTDIR is where all of the source code tarballs will be placed for # emerges. The source code is maintained here unless you delete # it. The entire repository of tarballs for gentoo is 9G. This is # considerably more than any user will ever download. 2-3G is # a large DISTDIR. #DISTDIR=${PORTDIR}/distfiles
this has come up before and the actual fix is trivial which is why i leave it for nick
if it's on a separate partition, why not just mount that partition to /usr/portage/distfiles? I have this setup: nebuchadnezzar modplugxmms # grep distfiles /etc/fstab /dev/hdd5 /usr/portage/distfiles reiserfs notail,noatime 0 0 it's a separate partition for me too...
Ooo, thanks for all the feedback and so quickly too. Have fixed my system now. However, I do think that this is a trap many will fall into. Thanks again.
