Although its obviously always a result of human error, it is possible to accidentally unemerge a dependency of emerge (such as Python). Emerge should warn of this before doing the act, because the result will be a broken emerge and possibly a tough time getting back up to speed. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Unemerge a dependency of emerge 2. Cry
Ideally it should warn when you try to unemerge anything that is a dependency of anything else, but it's particularly annoying with emerge as it makes recovery that much harder.
this has already been reported (but i cant locate the bug # atm) and already been fixed in 2.0.51: root@vapier 0 ~ # emerge python -C !!! Trying to unmerge package(s) in system profile. 'dev-lang/python' !!! This could be damaging to your system. >>> Waiting 10 seconds before starting... >>> (Control-C to abort)... Press Ctrl-C to Stop in: 10 9
Ah fair enough, glad to hear that's in the new portage. I would like, however, to see some kind of safe mode that requires confirmation before doing anything potentially damaging such as that (or perhaps safe mode by default, and an option for reckless mode)
