portage installs ruby 1.8.1 and then wants to downgrade to 1.8.0-r4.
Please provide `emerge info` and `epm -qGa | grep ruby` (epm is in app-portage/epm)
epm -qGa | grep ruby: dev-lang/ruby-1.8.1 dev-ruby/uconv-0.4.11 dev-ruby/http-access2-0j dev-ruby/devel-logger-1.0.1 dev-ruby/programming-ruby-0.4 dev-ruby/rexml-2.5.8 dev-ruby/soap4r-1.5.1.2 emerge info: Portage 2.0.49-r20 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.3_pre20031222-r0, 2.4.22-gentoo-r4) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.22-gentoo-r4 i686 VIA Samuel 2 Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.12 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=c3 -m3dnow -O2 -pipe" CHOST="i586-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/dvipdfm/config/ /usr/share/texmf/dvips/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /usr/share/texmf/xdvi/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=c3 -m3dnow -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/" MAKEOPTS="-j1" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow 3ds X X509 Xaw3d aalib aavm acl acpi alsa arts artswrappersuid athena atlas avi berkdb crypt cscope cups curl dga dillo dnd doc dvb dvd emacs encode ethereal faad fam fbcon fftw flac flash fltk fluidsynth foomaticdb gd gdbm ggi gif gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imagemagick imap imlib innodb jack jack-caps jack-tmpfs java javascript jpeg kde ladcca lcms leim libg++ libwww mad matroska mbox mcal md5sum mikmod mmx motif moznocompose moznoirc moznomail mpeg mpi ncurses objc oggvorbis opengl oss pam parse-clocks pcap pda pdflib perl pic plotutils png ppds python qt quicktime radeon readline ruby ruby18 sdl skey slang slp sox speex spell sqlite ssl tcltk tcpd tetex tiff transcode truetype type1 usb videos vim-with-x wmf wxwindows x86 xml xml2 xmms xv xvid zlib video_cards_radeon"
soap4r is included into the ruby distribution since 1.8.1 release. unmerge soap4r and the problem will go. dev-ruby/soap4r has DEPEND="<dev-lang/ruby-1.8.1" and this is why Portage tries to downgrade to ruby-1.8.0-r4. See soap4r homepage http://rrr.jin.gr.jp/rwiki?cmd=view;name=soap4r for more information.
That fixed it, thank you!
cool, thanks for reporting.