util-linux falsely depends on sys-libs/e2fsprogs and should instead (or at least additionally) depend on sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs for libblkid.
Actually it could be an alternative, because libblkid moved out of e2fsprogs starting in 1.41 || ( <=sys-fs/e2fsprogs-1.40 sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs )
fixed in cvs http://sources.gentoo.org/sys-apps/util-linux/util-linux-2.14.1.ebuild?r1=1.12&r2=1.13
Mike, your change, is in conflict with bug 234907. Before some weeks zmedico removed e2fsprogs from system set to fix bug 234907. I copy paste the line from the changelog of profiles/base/packages Remove sys-fs/e2fsprogs from the system set in order to allow automatic blocker resolution for bug #234907. This change shouldn't hurt since the sys-fs/e2fsprogs package is pulled in as a dependency of sys-apps/util-linux, which is a member of the system set for relevant profiles. I see that one way or another, e2fsprogs pull in e2fsprogs-libs, so why we did that change anyway? I cc dev-portage@ and I hope there isn't a false alarm of my side.
I increase severity, cause the change pulls out e2fsprogs from every box, if someone does today a depclean.
bah, don't change anything, we probably have solved bug 234907 another way(writing a revbumped ebuild of e2fsprogs-libs in EAPI=2 where with 2.1.6 portage, blockers get solved automatically). I'll leave the open for a while, and resolve it as fixed again, in some hours.
I am the unlucky sap that happened to do emerge --depclean today and not notice that e2fsprogs was in the list (probably because I didn't know what it was). I lost fsck and system refused to boot after that. Spent several hours tracking down what was missing and manually installing e2fsprogs from livecd... This definitely ought to be fixed.
Sorry, I guess you happened to sync before it got fixed. It's already been fixed though: http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/sys-libs/e2fsprogs-libs/e2fsprogs-libs-1.41.3-r1.ebuild?rev=1.1&view=log#rev1.1 http://sources.gentoo.org/viewcvs.py/gentoo-x86/profiles/base/packages?rev=1.44&view=log#rev1.44