This blocking is occur only on ~ Highest not masked version of dev-db/postgresql-base for installing is 8.3.4 on ~. BUT default not masked version of dev-db/libpq for installing is 8.2.7 And we got: emerge libpq Calculating dependencies... done! [ebuild N ] dev-db/libpq-8.2.7 USE="kerberos nls pam readline ssl zlib -pg-intdatetime -threads" [blocks B ] dev-db/libpq ("dev-db/libpq" is blocking dev-db/postgresql-base-8.3.4) [blocks B ] dev-db/libpq ("dev-db/libpq" is blocking app-admin/eselect-postgresql-0.3) [blocks B ] dev-db/postgresql-base ("dev-db/postgresql-base" is blocking dev-db/libpq-8.2.7) Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. emerge dev-db/postgresql-base on ~ 2. emerge libpq on ~ 3. and via verse Portage 2.2_rc12 (default/linux/x86/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.2, glibc-2.8_p20080602-r0, 2.6.27.3 i686) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.27.3-i686-Intel-R-_Core-TM-2_Duo_CPU_E8500_@_3.16GHz-with-glibc2.0 Timestamp of tree: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:30:01 +0000 ccache version 2.4 [enabled] app-shells/bash: 3.2_p39 dev-java/java-config: 1.3.7, 2.1.6-r1 dev-lang/python: 2.5.2-r8 dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r8 dev-util/cmake: 2.6.2 sys-apps/baselayout: 2.0.0 sys-apps/openrc: 0.3.0-r1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.2.18.1-r3 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.63 sys-devel/automake: 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.1-r1 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 2.2.6a virtual/os-headers: 2.6.26 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=core2 -O2 -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/config /var/lib/hsqldb" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/eselect/postgresql /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/gentoo-release /etc/php/apache2-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cgi-php5/ext-active/ /etc/php/cli-php5/ext-active/ /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=core2 -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="ccache distlocks metadata-transfer parallel-fetch preserve-libs protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://mirror.bytemark.co.uk/gentoo/ http://ftp.uoi.gr/mirror/OS/gentoo/ http://mirror.qubenet.net/mirror/gentoo/ http://mirror.bih.net.ba/gentoo/" LANG="ru_RU.UTF-8" LC_ALL="ru_RU.UTF-8" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" LINGUAS="ru" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage/layman/sunrise /usr/local/portage/layman/rostov /usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X acl acpi alsa berkdb bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo cdr cli cracklib crypt cups dbus dri dvd dvdr dvdread eds emboss encode esd evo fam firefox fortran gdbm gif gnokii gpm gstreamer gtk hal iconv isdnlog jingle jpeg kde kerberos ldap libnotify lm_sensors logrotate mad midi mikmod mmx mp3 mpeg mudflap ncurses nls nptl nptlonly ogg opengl openmp oss pam pcre pdf perl png ppds pppd python qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime readline reflection sasl sdl session slang spell spl sse sse2 ssl startup-notification svg symlink sysfs tcpd tiff truetype unicode usb utf8 vorbis win32codecs x86 xml xorg xv zlib ~x86" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" LINGUAS="ru" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="nv nvidia vesa" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS
Since you're using ~arch, it's not unexpected that things will break some times. Having said that, it appears this issue has come about since postgresql-base isn't masked along with libpq and postgres: # Caleb Tennis <caleb@gentoo.org> (26 Mar 2008) # Masking per dev-zero request for more testing time =dev-db/libpq-8.3* =dev-db/postgresql-8.3* Also, this is quite an old mask entry (about 6 months). I've CCed dev-zero specifically (sorry if you're in the pgsql-bugs alias) to ask if this version still needs testing, or if it can be unmasked?
(luser alert) Maybe I misunderstand the problem here, but the packages have been split & renamed. You can have either (libpq && postgresql) OR (postgresql-base && postgresql-server) installed, no combinations. AFIK eselect is only intended for the latter, and intentionally unmasked so that all other ~dependencies could be fixed from libpq to postgresql-base.
Yes, it's intended that you use postgresql-server if you want to install 8.3
