Connecting two emerge options -p and -f gives sth like this: emerge -p -f lilo These are the packages that would be fetched, in order: Calculating dependencies... done! http://distfiles.gentoo.org/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://ftp.gentoo.or.kr/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 ftp://ftp.rez-gif.supelec.fr/pub/Linux/distrib/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://gentoo.mirrors.pair.com/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/os/linux/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://open-systems.ufl.edu/mirrors/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 ftp://ftp.snt.utwente.nl/pub/os/linux/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 ftp://cudlug.cudenver.edu/pub/mirrors/distributions/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://gentoo.oregonstate.edu/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 ftp://ftp.oregonstate.edu/pub/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 ftp://ftp.tu-clausthal.de/pub/linux/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://mirrors.tds.net/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 ftp://lug.mtu.edu/gentoo/source/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://cudlug.cudenver.edu/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 ftp://ftp.gtlib.cc.gatech.edu/pub/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/distfiles/dolilo-0.3.tar.bz2 http://distfiles.gentoo.org/distfiles/lilo-22.7.src.tar.gz http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo/distfiles/lilo-22.7.src.tar.gz http://home.san.rr.com/johninsd/pub/linux/lilo/lilo-22.7.src.tar.gz ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/lilo/lilo-22.7.src.tar.gz ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/system/boot/lilo/obsolete/lilo-22.7.src.tar.gz My emerge --info: Portage 2.1.1 (default-linux/x86/2006.1, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.4-r3, 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.17-gentoo-r8 i686 Intel(R) Celeron(R) CPU 2.20GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.12.5 Last Sync: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:00:01 +0000 distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [enabled] ccache version 2.3 [enabled] app-admin/eselect-compiler: [Not Present] dev-java/java-config: 1.2.11-r1 dev-lang/python: 2.4.3-r1 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-r2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.16.1-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.3.13-r3 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.22 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.17-r1 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" 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/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=pentium4 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig ccache confcache distcc distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch sandbox sfperms strict" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8" LINGUAS="" MAKEOPTS="-j2 -s" 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" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 7zip X a52 aac aalib alsa amr asf berkdb bitmap-fonts bl bzip2 cairo chm cli config_wizard crypt css cups dbus dga directfb dlloader dri dvb dvd dvdr dvdread elibc_glibc extraicons extramodules extras fbcon ffmpeg firefox flac fortran gdbm gg gif gpm gstreamer gtk gtk2 hal input_devices_keyboard input_devices_mouse input_devices_synaptics isdnlog jabber jack java javascript jpeg jpeg2k kde kdeenablefinal kernel_linux lcms libcaca libg++ logitech-mouse mad mmx mmxext mng mp3 mp4 mpeg mplayer nas ncurses nls nptl nptlonly nptonly nsplugin ogg openal opengl pam pcre pdf perl php png ppds pppd python qt3 quicktime readline real reflection samba sdl session slang sndfile speex spell spl sse sse2 ssl svg svga symlink tcpd theora tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts udev unicode userland_GNU vcd video_cards_fbdev video_cards_i810 vorbis win32codecs wmf x264 xanim xine xmms xorg xscreensaver xvid xvmc zlib" Unset: CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LDFLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY Same happens on a few different computers.
From emerge --help: --fetchonly (-f short option) Instead of doing any package building, just perform fetches for all packages (main package as well as all dependencies.) When used in combination with --pretend all the SRC_URIs will be displayed multiple mirrors per line, one line per file. This is the expected and intended behaviour.
As I remember it worked different before, didn't it? Is it possible devs changed it as it was previously?
It's possible I remember wrong myself, but I don't remember any different behaviour for -p -f.