When using the option -j1 to emerge, ebuilds using ninja (e.g. qtwebkit) still use a number of jobs as given in MAKEOPTS. In my opinion -j1 (to emerge) should override MAKEOPTS and NINJAOPTS Portage 2.3.49 (python 2.7.15-final-0, default/linux/amd64/17.0/desktop, gcc-7.3.0, glibc-2.26-r7, 4.4.138 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-4.4.138-x86_64-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_Extreme_CPU_Q6850_@_3.00GHz-with-gentoo-2.4.1 KiB Swap: 19535036 total, 18783840 free Timestamp of repository gentoo: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 00:45:01 +0000 Head commit of repository gentoo: 3c432c98ebc0f678ec25c3a903d8601f79e16102 sh bash 4.4_p12 ld GNU ld (Gentoo 2.30 p2) 2.30.0 app-shells/bash: 4.4_p12::gentoo dev-java/java-config: 2.2.0-r4::gentoo dev-lang/perl: 5.24.3-r1::gentoo dev-lang/python: 2.7.15::gentoo, 3.6.5::gentoo dev-util/cmake: 3.9.6::gentoo dev-util/pkgconfig: 0.29.2::gentoo sys-apps/baselayout: 2.4.1-r2::gentoo sys-apps/openrc: 0.34.11::gentoo sys-apps/sandbox: 2.13::gentoo sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13::gentoo, 2.69-r4::gentoo sys-devel/automake: 1.11.6-r3::gentoo, 1.13.4-r2::gentoo, 1.15.1-r2::gentoo sys-devel/binutils: 2.30-r2::gentoo sys-devel/gcc: 7.3.0-r3::gentoo sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.8-r1::gentoo sys-devel/libtool: 2.4.6-r3::gentoo sys-devel/make: 4.2.1-r4::gentoo sys-kernel/linux-headers: 4.13::gentoo (virtual/os-headers) sys-libs/glibc: 2.26-r7::gentoo Repositories: gentoo location: /usr/portage sync-type: rsync sync-uri: rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage priority: -1000 sync-rsync-verify-jobs: 1 sync-rsync-verify-metamanifest: yes sync-rsync-extra-opts: sync-rsync-verify-max-age: 24 science location: /var/lib/layman/science masters: gentoo priority: 50 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64" ACCEPT_LICENSE="*" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=core2" CHOST="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/lib64/libreoffice/program/sofficerc /usr/share/config /usr/share/gnupg/qualified.txt" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/dconf /etc/env.d /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/texmf/language.dat.d /etc/texmf/language.def.d /etc/texmf/updmap.d /etc/texmf/web2c" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -pipe -march=core2" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" ENV_UNSET="DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS DISPLAY PERL5LIB PERL5OPT PERLPREFIX PERL_CORE PERL_MB_OPT PERL_MM_OPT XAUTHORITY XDG_CACHE_HOME XDG_CONFIG_HOME XDG_DATA_HOME XDG_RUNTIME_DIR" FCFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" FEATURES="assume-digests binpkg-logs config-protect-if-modified distlocks ebuild-locks fixlafiles merge-sync multilib-strict news parallel-fetch preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unknown-features-warn unmerge-logs unmerge-orphans userfetch userpriv usersandbox usersync webrsync-gpg xattr" FFLAGS="-O2 -pipe" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://de-mirror.org/distro/gentoo/ http://gentoo.inode.at/ http://mirror.ovh.net/gentoo-distfiles/ http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/os/linux/gentoo http://mirrors.sec.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/gentoo/ http://mirror.bytemark.co.uk/gentoo/ http://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/mirrors/gentoo" LANG="de_DE.utf8" LC_ALL="de_DE.utf8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1 -Wl,--as-needed" LINGUAS="de en en_GB de_DE" MAKEOPTS="-j5" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --omit-dir-times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --human-readable --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages --exclude=/.git" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/tmp/portage" USE="#icq #kde #qt3support #qt4 X a52 aac acl acpi alsa amd64 amr ao apache2 apm audiofile bash-completion berkdb bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdda cddb cdparanoia cdr cli consolekit cracklib crypt cups cxx dbus djvu dri dts dv dvb dvd dvdr dvdread emboss encode exif fam ffmpeg firefox flac fltk foomaticdb fortran garmin gdbm gif gimp glamor gphoto2 gpm gps gtk gzip hal iconv imagemagick imlib jabber java javascript jbig joystick jpeg jpeg2k kpathsea lame lcms ldap libnotify libtirpc lm_sensors mad mmx mng modules mp3 mp4 mpeg mplayer msn multilib musepack ncurses nls nntp nptl nsplugin nvidia offensive ogg openexr opengl openmp oscar pam pango pcre pda pdf perl php plotutils png policykit ppds qt5 quicktime readline sdl seccomp server slang smp sndfile sockets sox speex spell sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg szip tcpd tetex theora threads tiff truetype udev udisks unicode upower usb v4l v4l2 vcd visualization vorbis win32codecs wmf wxwidgets x264 xattr xcb xcomposite xine xml xpm xv xvid yahoo zlib" ABI_X86="64" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic auth_digest authn_anon authn_dbd authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock dbd deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers ident imagemap include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation proxy proxy_ajp proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_http rewrite setenvif so speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" CALLIGRA_FEATURES="karbon plan sheets stage words" COLLECTD_PLUGINS="df interface irq load memory rrdtool swap syslog" CPU_FLAGS_X86="mmx mmxext sse sse2 sse3 ssse3" ELIBC="glibc" GPSD_PROTOCOLS="ashtech aivdm earthmate evermore fv18 garmin garmintxt gpsclock isync itrax mtk3301 nmea ntrip navcom oceanserver oldstyle oncore rtcm104v2 rtcm104v3 sirf skytraq superstar2 timing tsip tripmate tnt ublox ubx" INPUT_DEVICES="evdev" KERNEL="linux" L10N="de en en_GB de_DE" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LIBREOFFICE_EXTENSIONS="presenter-console presenter-minimizer" OFFICE_IMPLEMENTATION="libreoffice" PHP_TARGETS="php5-6 php7-0" POSTGRES_TARGETS="postgres9_5 postgres10" PYTHON_SINGLE_TARGET="python3_6" PYTHON_TARGETS="python2_7 python3_6" RUBY_TARGETS="ruby23" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nv" XTABLES_ADDONS="quota2 psd pknock lscan length2 ipv4options ipset ipp2p iface geoip fuzzy condition tee tarpit sysrq steal rawnat logmark ipmark dhcpmac delude chaos account" Unset: CC, CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, CXX, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_BINHOST, PORTAGE_BUNZIP2_COMMAND, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
I probably misunderstood the intended effect of -j1 to emerge...