Managed to hit an outdated rsync mirror and timestamp checking failed. Shortened output (full is at URL): gehinom ~ # cat /usr/portage/metadata/timestamp.chk Sun, 18 Jun 2006 14:20:01 +0000 gehinom ~ # mcedit /etc/make.conf gehinom ~ # emerge --sync >>> Starting rsync with rsync://147.91.8.58/gentoo-portage... >>> Checking server timestamp ... [...] receiving file list ... done timestamp.chk [...] Number of files: 1 Number of files transferred: 1 [decided timestamp was ok and synced full tree] receiving file list ... done dev-libs/ dev-libs/legousbtower/ [...] gehinom ~ # cat /usr/portage/metadata/timestamp.chk Sun, 18 Jun 2006 00:20:01 +0000 Timestamp is now 14 hours older... gehinom ~ # emerge --info Portage 2.1.1_pre1-r1 (default-linux/x86/2006.0, gcc-3.4.6, glibc-2.3.6-r3, 2.6.16-gentoo-r9-perfctr i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.16-gentoo-r9-perfctr i686 AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor 3000+ Gentoo Base System version 1.12.1 ccache version 2.3 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.5-r2, 2.4.2 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r5 dev-util/ccache: 2.3 dev-util/confcache: 0.4.2-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.17 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-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1-r2 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.13-r2 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.11-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon64 -msse3 -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/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/gconf /etc/java-config/vms/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon64 -msse3 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage-distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache confcache distlocks parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict userfetch userpriv usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://ftp.sh.cvut.cz/MIRRORS/gentoo ftp://sunsite.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/pub/Linux/gentoo" LANG="en_US.utf8" LINGUAS="en cs" 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/overlays/java-experimental /usr/local/overlays/java-migration /usr/local/overlays/java-migration-packages /usr/local/overlays/caster" SYNC="rsync://147.91.8.58/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow 3dnowext 7zip X aac alsa apache2 apm audiofile avi bash-completion berkdb bitmap-fonts bluetooth bzip2 caps cdr cjk cli crypt cups curl dbus directfb dlloader dri dts dvd dvdr eds emboss encode esd fam fbcon ffmpeg fftw firefox flac foomaticdb fortran gdbm ggi gif gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal icq idn imlib ipv6 isdnlog java javascript jpeg kde kdeenablefinal lcms libcaca libg++ libwww lm_sensors lua lzo mad matroska mikmod mmx mmxext motif mozcalendar mozdevelop mozilla moznoirc mozsvg mp3 mpeg mplayer ncurses nls nptl nsplugin nvidia ogg openal opengl oscar pam pcre pdf pdflib perl png pppd python qt qt4 quicktime readline reflection rtc sdl session slang sockets speex spell spl sse sse2 ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode usb v4l vorbis win32codecs xine xml xml2 xorg xosd xv xvid zlib elibc_glibc input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse input_devices_evdev kernel_linux linguas_en linguas_cs userland_GNU video_cards_nvidia video_cards_nv video_cards_vesa video_cards_fbdev video_cards_v4l" Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LC_ALL, LDFLAGS, MAKEOPTS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
The problem is that timestamp.chk is not properly saved when metadata-transfer is disabled. This is fixed in svn r3537.
This has been released in 2.1-r1.
