On a new install of Gentoo/FreeBSD following the install guide, an additional step is needed in sample 2.11 to rm -rf /etc/make.profile first - doing ln will not work otherwise as the directory already exists and isn't a link. Reproducible: Always
man ln <snip> -f Remove existing destination files. </snip> What kind of directory are you talking about? It's never been a directory anywhere, let alone on a *fresh* install.