emerge does in the last version sync a downgrad to binutils-2.17. If you have a core duo cpu you need the binutils version 2.17.50.0.8 to get at least a little bit performance out of your compiler. This is been done with the experimental flag ~amd64 or ~x86 depending with version you use. After upgrading the system at 25.january.2007 you will bring down all system to death during a generall downgrade to 2.17 if you do so your libc.so.6 will not be recognised any more and your System is gona garbage during unable to compile any more!. Please stop this generall downgrade. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. add USE=~amd64 or add experimental use of 2.17 in /etc/portage flags 2. emerge --sync 3. emerge -u world Actual Results: Say godbay to your system you can start from scratch. If this generall downgrad will continue you will kill thousands of core2 systems during everybody has a huge performance problem and is only get a little bite from the performance with the new binutils! Expected Results: Stop downgrading software specialy gcc and binutils are realy sensitiv. Feel free to contact me. I give anser within little reaction time.
binutils-2.17.50.0.8 was not keyworded ~amd64. It was hard-masked. binutils-2.17.50.0.8 was removed from the tree the 23rd, but 2.17.50.0.9 has been in since the beginning of the month already. You can't expect all versions of binutils to stay in the tree forever, you do need to keep up with newer versions. The reason why portage downgraded binutils is because you chose to unmask 2.17.50.0.8 but not any newer versions. Don't do that. And even with a non-functional binutils, there is no need to restart from scratch. As long as your system is functional, even if it cannot compile, you can install binary packages and use those to recover your system.
