rather, it's happening at the first invocation of 'emerge' after the --sync. Don't know if this is intentional or harmful or just cosmetical. I noticed it around pre9, pre10 and thought I'd report it. Thank you, Max emerge --info Portage 2.1_rc3-r5 (default-linux/x86/2005.1, gcc-3.4.6, glibc-2.3.6-r4, 2.6.16-gentoo-r8 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.16-gentoo-r8 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+ Gentoo Base System version 1.12.0 dev-lang/python: 2.4.3-r1 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5 dev-util/ccache: [Not Present] dev-util/confcache: 0.4.2-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r7 sys-devel/automake: 1.4_p6, 1.5, 1.6.3, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1-r2 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r5 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/3.5/env /usr/kde/3.5/share/config /usr/kde/3.5/shutdown /usr/share/X11/xkb /usr/share/config" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig collision-protect distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict userfetch userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://pandemonium.tiscali.de/pub/gentoo/ http://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/" MAKEOPTS="-j2" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --delete-after --stats --timeout=180 --exclude='/distfiles' --exclude='/local' --exclude='/packages'" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.de.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow X a52 aac alsa apache2 apm avi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bzip2 cdr cli crypt curl dri dvd dvdr emboss encode ffmpeg firefox flac foomaticdb gdbm gif gpm gtk gtk2 hal imlib isdnlog jpeg kde kdeenablefinal kdexdeltas lcms libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mp3 mpeg musicbrainz ncurses nls nptl offensive ogg oggvorbis opengl oss pam pcre pdflib perl png pppd python qt quicktime readline reflection ruby sdl session spell spl sse ssl tcpd theora tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts usb vorbis win32codecs xine xml2 xorg xv zlib elibc_glibc input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse kernel_linux userland_GNU video_cards_radeon" Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, LINGUAS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
It wasn't an intentional change. I've restored the old behavior in svn r3451.
This has been released in 2.1_rc4-r1.