Here is a copy/paste of the forum discussion: Portage should store in [insert data retention system of choice here, ie: db, mysql, flat file] the complete package history of a system from it's life to death. This db would containe date stamped entries (duh!) of packages with their install, upgrade, uninstall history as well as their use and compile flags. I beleive this would be an incredibly useful tool for system admins AND users so that one could be able to track down where and when a system went Ying instead of Yang. This database would be able to bring back a system to any state prior to any call to the emerge system (neat huh!). Portage already detects which config files require some changing, so these could be stored in a config.tbz file (which would most probably be VERY small) and have a reference to it in the aformentionned database. I don't think any of this would take a tremendous amount of space but I do see it as a precious resource for system administrator that would like to have a free conscious when managing their Gentoo server and stations, giving them the ultimate tool to go back a few steps.
you can review emerge.log in /var/log/
Uhm...shoot me someone....hehehe Okay, so that is defenately a good start :) At least past history could be added to the database. - There is a big number that appears in the log at one point (at the begining of each entry), is that an unformated date stamp? - What about centralising the information I listed in the original post (C and USE flags, maintain config files). Obviously, you guys do what you want with this, this could be a completely different app that gathers all the scattered info. But I beleive portage has all the info readily available during the whole process so it would make sens if it at least dumped this info in an organized fashion in a db(ish) format.
genlop / splat exist.
