It seems that hdparm is not part of the @system set on my machine: davide@gentoo ~ $ eselect profile show Current make.profile symlink: /usr/portage/profiles/default/linux/x86/2008.0/desktop davide@gentoo ~ $ emerge -pe system | grep hdparm shows nothing, while: davide@gentoo ~ $ sudo eselect profile set 4 && eselect profile show Password: Current make.profile symlink: /usr/portage/profiles/default-linux/x86/2007.0/desktop davide@gentoo ~ $ emerge -pe system | grep hdparm [ebuild R ] sys-apps/hdparm-8.6 moreover depclean will want to remove hdparm... Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. switch to profile default/linux/2008.0/desktop 2. emerge -p --depclean 3. Actual Results: Emerge will want to remove hdparm (which indeed is not a good idea). Expected Results: hdparm should be listed as a system package so emerge should not try to unmerge it. davide@gentoo ~ $ emerge --info Portage 2.1.4.4 (default/linux/x86/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.6.1-r0, 2.6.25-gentoo-r6 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.25-gentoo-r6 i686 Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2400 @ 1.83GHz Timestamp of tree: Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:32:01 +0000 ccache version 2.4 [enabled] app-shells/bash: 3.2_p33 dev-lang/python: 2.4.4-r13 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r6 dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r7 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.61-r2 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r1 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.26 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.23-r3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /etc/init.d/ipw3945d /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/init.d /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/web2c /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=prescott -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--with-bdeps=y" FEATURES="ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://mirror.muntinternet.net/pub/gentoo/ ftp://mirror.switch.ch/mirror/gentoo http://www.die.unipd.it/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo-sources/ ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo http://mirror.ing.unibo.it/gentoo/ ftp://mirror.ing.unibo.it/gentoo/ " LANG="C" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage /usr/local/portage/layman/sunrise /usr/local/portage/layman/science /usr/local/portage/layman/sajinet" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X acl acpi alsa berkdb blas branding bzip2 cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dbus dri dvd dvdr dvdread eds emboss encode evo fam ffmpeg firefox fortran ftp gb gdbm gif glitz gnome gphoto2 gpm gstreamer gtk hal iconv imagemagick ipv6 isdnlog jabber javascript jpeg kerberos lapack latex ldap libnotify mad midi mikmod mime mmx mozilla mp3 mpeg msn mudflap mysql ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl openmp pam pcre pdf perl png ppds pppd python quicktime readline reflection samba sdl session spell spl sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg tcpd tetex theora tiff truetype unicode usb vim-syntax vorbis win32codecs x86 xcomposite xml xorg xscreensaver xv xvid zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic auth_digest authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock dbd deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers ident imagemap include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation proxy proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_http rewrite setenvif so speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse synaptics" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nvidia nv" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
Sorry there was a typo in "step to reproduce". Correct is: 1. switch profile to default/linux/x86/2008.0/desktop 2. emerge -p --depclean
Just do `emerge hdparm` and it will be listed in your world file and not be affected by --depclean. There is no reason for hdparm being part of system.
