When I try to emerge -u world I run into problems on several applications. I have another server machine that runs gentoo that emerged the same applications fine, so I am sure it is something specific to this machine. I am unclear as to how to fix it though. It just happened recently, and I've never had this problem before. I basically stick to the the stable portage, however recently I was using ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" to install the latest bluez bluetooth utils. I have since removed them, and the problem still exists. I am submitting this bug because I am hoping that someone may at least have an idea how to go about fixing this problem, and also because if any others encounter it there may be some help for them. Google did not do me much good for this one. Note that the two apps that I've tested and can reproduce this problem on, are gimp2, and mysql. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. emerge -u gimp, or emerge -u mysql Actual Results: ar cru libappvectors.a gimpanchor.o gimpbezierstroke.o gimpcoordmath.o gimpstroke.o gimpvectors.o gimpvectors-compat.o gimpvectors-export.o gimpvectors-import.o gimpvectors-preview.o ar: libappvectors.a: Malformed archive make[3]: *** [libappvectors.a] Error 1 make[3]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/gimp-2.0.4/work/gimp-2.0.4/app/vectors' make[2]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[2]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/gimp-2.0.4/work/gimp-2.0.4/app' make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1 make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/gimp-2.0.4/work/gimp-2.0.4' make: *** [all] Error 2 !!! ERROR: media-gfx/gimp-2.0.4 failed. !!! Function src_compile, Line 97, Exitcode 2 !!! (no error message) Expected Results: completed emerging. I am running xorg x server, with nvidia binary driver... linux kernel 2.6.9-rc1-mm1. emerge info: Gentoo Base System version 1.4.16 Portage 2.0.50-r10 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.4, glibc-2.3.3.20040420-r1, 2.6.9-rc1-mm1) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.9-rc1-mm1 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2200+ distcc 2.13 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.59-r4 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.8.5-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O3 -mcpu=athlon-xp -march=athlon-xp -pipe -fforce-addr -fomit-frame-pointer -funroll-loops -frerun-cse-after-loop -frerun-loop-opt -falign-functions=4" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="" 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/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="-O3 -mcpu=athlon-xp -march=athlon-xp -pipe -fforce-addr -fomit-frame-pointer -funroll-loops -frerun-cse-after-loop -frerun-loop-opt -falign-functions=4" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache grc sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/mirror/gentoo.org ftp://gentoo.agsn.ca/ http://gentoo.llarian.net/ http://gentoo.binarycompass.org" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="" SYNC="rsync://rsync.ca.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X Xaw3d aalib alsa apm arts avi berkdb bluetooth bonobo cdr crypt cups curl dvd encode esd fbcon foomaticdb gdbm gif gnome gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile imap imlib imlib2 java jikes joystick jpeg junit kde lcms libg++ libwww mad maildir mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg mpeg4 mysql ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pda pdflib perl plotutils png ppds python qt quicktime readline ruby samba sdl slp spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype usb videos wmf wxwindows x86 xinerama xml xml2 xmms xosd xv zlib"
Stupid me, I finally figured out that kernel 2.6.9-rc1 somehow intermittently broke disk read/write's. Switching back to 2.6.8.1 fixed the problem.
