Try to emerge nautilus-2.6.1 without cups installed Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1.emerge -C cups 2.emerge -u nautilus 3. Portage 2.0.50-r6 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.4.20-gentoo-r7) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.20-gentoo-r7 i686 AMD Athlon(TM) XP 1800+ Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.13 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.58-r1 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=i686 -pipe" CHOST="i686-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/3.2/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/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=i686 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.hadiko.de/pub/dists/gentoo/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://ftp.hadiko.de/pub/dists/gentoo/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow X aalib alsa apm arts avi berkdb bmp bonobo cdr crypt cups dvd emacs encode esd foomaticdb gdbm gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml imlib java jpeg jpg kde libcss libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png postgres python qt quicktime readline samba sdl slang spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex truetype x86 xml2 xmms xv zlib"
there is no direct dep on cups (it goes via libgnomecups), so what you do here is plain wrong.