The file "/var/cache/edb/world" was left without the full number of entries (my installed programs.) I did an "emerge -uD apache nano shadow perl ssmtp gvim samba wine flac mozilla (etc)" and ran out of disk space during the updates. (I didn't emerge world as I didn't have all the distfiles required for a world update.) Now I've cleared up some space I get absolutely no files needed for upgrading on "emerge -uD -pv world" I know thats not right because last time I did "emerge -uD -pv world" I had at least 100 packages needing updating and I haven't updated those packages yet. The file "/var/cache/edb/world" reads: "sys-apps/shadow net-www/apache dev-lang/perl dev-lang/gnat mail-mta/ssmtp app-editors/gvim app-emulation/wine media-libs/flac net-www/mozilla media-video/nvidia-glx dev-db/mysql net-fs/samba app-editors/nano" and these are the files that I upgraded. (I freed up some hard drive space, then pressed the up arrow a few times to recall the "emerge -uD list_of_packages" command I had done before and retried the command (It ran successfully through this time, as I had sufficient hard drive space.)) The world file should contain all packages I have installed (far more than this.) Reproducible: Sometimes Steps to Reproduce: 1. Fill up your hard drive (ie leave at most a few meg) 2. Do an emerge -uD large_list_of_packages 3. Actual Results: program tried to write world file to hard drive, but did not have the space to do so. program deleted the world file, then on a subsequent update populated it with the programs that were updated. Expected Results: program should not try and write the world file to hard drive unless it has the space required to do so. world file should have been left as it was. emerge info: Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Portage 2.0.50-r9 (default-x86-2004.0, gcc-3.3.3, glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r0, 2.6.4) =============================================================== == System uname: 2.6.4 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(TM) CPU 1300MHz ccache version 2.3 [enabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r3 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.3 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /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 -march=i686 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://fennetic.anu.edu.au/gentoo http://gen2box.ath.cx/gentoo/ http://burgmann199.anu.edu.au/ iwaki.anu.edu.au/~u2564793/ http://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/gentoo/ " MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://gen2box.ath.cx/gentoo-portage" USE="X acpi acpi4linux aim alsa apache2 apm avi bindist cdr chroot crypt cscope dedicated dga directfb divx4linux doc emacs encode ethereal f77 fbcon flac freetype gif gnome gnomedb gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile icq imap imlib jabber java jikes jpeg junit kerberos krb4 libg++ libwww mad mbox memlimit mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg mpeg4 msn mysql ncurses nls nocd oggvorbis openal opengl oscar oss pam pcap pdflib perl png python quicktime readline samba sasl sdl serial slang spell src sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype unicode usb videos x86 xml xml2 xmms xosd xv xvid yahoo zlib"
/usr/lib/portage/bin/regenworld is a nice tool. This bug is pretty old now. The cause is long resolved.
