It is possible for app-arch/gzip to fail when app-alternatives/gzip is running at excatly the same time: app-alternatives/gzip will create the link /bin/g[un]zip at the same time as app-arch/gzip, leading to: gzip-1.12-r4: >>> Extracting info gzip-1.12-r4: * Package: app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4 gzip-1.12-r4: * Repository: portage-stable gzip-1.12-r4: * USE: elibc_glibc abi_x86_64 userland_GNU kernel_linux amd64 gzip-1.12-r4: * FEATURES: network-sandbox sandbox splitdebug userpriv usersandbox gzip-1.12-r4: * Running stacked hooks for pre_pkg_setup gzip-1.12-r4: * sysroot_build_bin_dir ... gzip-1.12-r4: [ ok ] gzip-1.12-r4: >>> Extracting app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4 gzip-1.12-r4: * checking 13 files for package collisions gzip-1.12-r4: >>> Merging app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4 to /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/ gzip-1.12-r4: --- /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/bin/ gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/bin/gunzip-reference gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/bin/gzip-reference gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/bin/zcat-reference gzip-1.12-r4: --- /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/build/ gzip-1.12-r4: --- /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/ gzip-1.12-r4: --- /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/ gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zmore gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zcmp gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zdiff gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zforce gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zgrep gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/znew gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zfgrep gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zless gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/gzexe gzip-1.12-r4: >>> /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/bin/zegrep gzip-1.12-r4: --- /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/usr/lib/ gzip-1.12-r4: ln: failed to create symbolic link '/mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/bin/gunzip': File exists gzip-1.12-r4: * ERROR: app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4::portage-stable failed (postinst phase): gzip-1.12-r4: * (no error message) gzip-1.12-r4: * gzip-1.12-r4: * Call stack: gzip-1.12-r4: * ebuild.sh, line 125: Called pkg_postinst gzip-1.12-r4: * environment, line 2261: Called die gzip-1.12-r4: * The specific snippet of code: gzip-1.12-r4: * ln -s "${x}-reference" "${EROOT}/bin/${x}" || die; gzip-1.12-r4: * gzip-1.12-r4: * Build log: /build/betty-arc-r-container/tmp/portage/logs/app-arch:gzip-1.12-r4:20231207-072851.log gzip-1.12-r4: * Stable log symlink: /build/betty-arc-r-container/tmp/portage/app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4/temp/build.log gzip-1.12-r4: * CWD: /build/betty-arc-r-container/tmp/portage/app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4/homedir gzip-1.12-r4: * S: /build/betty-arc-r-container/tmp/portage/app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4/work/gzip-1.12 gzip-1.12-r4: * FAILED postinst: 1 In the build phase, we add: >>> 23:28:48.246 Emerging binary (780 of 789) app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4::portage-stable for /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/ >>> 23:28:48.300 Emerging binary (781 of 789) app-alternatives/gzip-0::portage-stable for /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/ >>> 23:28:58.489 Installing (780 of 789) app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4::portage-stable to /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/ >>> 23:28:58.557 Installing (781 of 789) app-alternatives/gzip-0::portage-stable to /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/ >>> 23:29:00.973 Failed app-arch/gzip-1.12-r4::portage-stable in /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/ >>> 23:29:01.134 Completed (781 of 789) app-alternatives/gzip-0::portage-stable to /mnt/host/source/src/build/images/betty-arc-r-container/R122-15704.0.0-d2023_12_06_232511-a1/rootfs/ ``` One possible solution is to add a circular dependency, via RDEPEND in app-alternatives/gzip to force app-arch/gzip to be done before it emerges.
What Portage version is this? I'd expect newer versions to serialise the two correctly.
The error happened because we were emerging without looking at dependencies.
