I use subverion 0.35.1 and python. python got upgraded by 'emerge -u world'. autoconf too ... After the python upgrade a script was run to reemerge python dependend packages, then subversion got reemerged: [blocks B ] =sys-devel/autoconf-2.58* (from pkg dev-util/subversion-0.35.1) [ebuild R ] dev-util/subversion-0.35.1 checking the versions: root # qpkg -i -I | grep auto ... sys-devel/autoconf-2.58 * root # autoconf --version Autoconf version 2.13 van root # autoconf autoconf autoconf-2.13 autoconf-2.58 van root # WANT_AUTOCONF="2.13" USE="apache2 -apache" ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" emerge -p subversion These are the packages that I would merge, in order: Calculating dependencies ...done! [blocks B ] =sys-devel/autoconf-2.58* (from pkg dev-util/subversion-0.35.1) [ebuild R ] dev-util/subversion-0.35.1 so the problem is that portage *thinks* just 2.58 is installed, but 2.13 is installed too ... Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. emerge python 2.2.3-r5 2. emerge subversion 0.35.1 3. emerge python 2.3.3 Actual Results: Calculating dependencies ...done! [blocks B ] =sys-devel/autoconf-2.58* (from pkg dev-util/subversion-0.35.1) [ebuild R ] dev-util/subversion-0.35.1 Expected Results: reemerge of subversion Portage 2.0.49-r20 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.2.3, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.4.19-49um) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.19-49um i686 Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.10p1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /home/http /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-mcpu=athlon-xp -O3 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/os/linux/gentoo http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/ http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="apm arts avi berkdb crypt cups encode foomaticdb gdbm gif gpm gtk2 imlib innodb java jpeg libg++ libwww mad mikmod motif mpeg mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png postgres python quicktime readline sdl slang spell ssl tcpd truetype x86 xml2 xmms xv zlib" Appendix: I know subversion is masked, but it is a very important package. The configure script tries to find files outside the sandbox, but I don't see why this could not be patched... I unfortunately don't speak autoconf/make, but on my other system the configure script does not find the right berkeley db, so it is definitely not very good ...
Just first update autoconf to 2.59 and subversion possibly to 0.37.0, after that run the updater. The autoconf-2.13 package should not be installed at all as the later autoconf's provide this. Subverion needs a new autoconf so 2.13 would not work anyway.