This is caused by the fix for bug #62003. With ruby-1.8.2_pre2.ebuild and no ruby already installed, installing ruby with +doc in USE fails because of a dependency on /usr/bin/ruby18 existing: Generating RDoc documentation /usr/bin/ruby18 ./bin/rdoc --all --ri-system . Temporarily overriding, to install ruby -doc, gets the ruby binary installed, which then allows ruby +doc to install. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Remove all traces of dev-lang/ruby 2. With or without ~arch flag (tested on x86 and ~x86), try to install dev-lang/ruby with 'doc' in the USE flags 3. After it fails, override so that dev-lang/ruby is -doc, install, then install ruby again, this time with +doc Actual Results: Build failed. Workaround of install and reinstall, with differing USE flags, worked. Expected Results: Not relied on a binary which was being installed as part of the package. Portage 2.0.50-r10 (default-x86-2004.2, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r1, 2.6.7-gentoo-r13) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.7-gentoo-r13 i686 AMD Athlon(TM) XP 2500+ Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r4 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=athlon-xp -march=athlon-xp -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -mfpmath=sse,387 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/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 -mcpu=athlon-xp -march=athlon-xp -mmmx -msse -m3dnow -mfpmath=sse,387 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/ http://gentoo.tiscali.nl/gentoo/" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.nl.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow X acpi alsa apache2 apm avi berkdb cdb cdr crypt cscope cups doc dvd encode esd fam foomaticdb gd gdbm ggi gif gmp gnome gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 imap imlib ipv6 java jpeg lcms ldap libg++ libwww mad maildir mbox mikmod mmx mng motif mozilla mpeg ncurses odbc offensive oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl png ppds python quicktime readline ruby samba sasl sdl slang snmp sockets speex spell sse ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype usb vhosts wmf x86 xml2 xmms xv xvid zlib"
Thanks for reporting. Fixed in CVS.