I have just tried installing less. During the install I pressed CTRL-C and now less is not working. This made me think: Why do we remove files that we know will be overwritten later? The current scheme seems to be: Remove all old-version files. Install all new-version files. If anything crashes between removing the first old-version file and installing the new version of this file, then the installation is broken. I would assume that it would be possible to do this instead: Keep track of all old-version files. If installing new-version overwrites an old-version: Mark it as removed. When all new-version files have been copied: Remove remaining old-version files. It would mean be bit more complexity but would save an installation if something is broken (I recently had emerge remove python - not good. It took some time before I had things running again).
