I've unmerged the old version and then tried to merge the new one. It fails to find the libraries which, as I understand, it's supposed to provide: /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/4.2.4/../../../../x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/bin/ld: cannot find /lib64/libblkid.so
oops, sorry, the libraries are in e2fsprogs-libs, but e2fsprogs didn't pull it as a dependacy for some reason. Everything is OK after I've emerged it manually.