ntp does not start complaining in syslog that: Jun 4 12:57:11 neverland ntpd[14898]: ntpd 4.2.4p7@1.1607-o Mon May 25 10:37:35 UTC 2009 (1) Jun 4 12:57:11 neverland ntpd[14902]: precision = 1.000 usec Jun 4 12:57:11 neverland ntpd[14902]: Listening on interface #0 wildcard, 0.0.0.0#123 Disabled Jun 4 12:57:11 neverland ntpd[14902]: Listening on interface #1 lo, 127.0.0.1#123 Enabled Jun 4 12:57:11 neverland ntpd[14902]: Listening on interface #2 eth0, 192.168.23.2#123 Enabled Jun 4 12:57:11 neverland ntpd[14902]: kernel time sync status 0040 Jun 4 12:57:11 neverland ntpd[14902]: command line -u/--user option is not supported by this binary. Reproducible: Always emerge --info Portage 2.1.6.11 (default/linux/amd64/2008.0/desktop, gcc-4.3.2, glibc-2.8_p20080602-r1, 2.6.29-gentoo-r5 x86_64) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.29-gentoo-r5-x86_64-AMD_Phenom-tm-_9750_Quad-Core_Processor-with-glibc2.2.5 Timestamp of tree: Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:30:17 +0000 ccache version 2.4 [enabled] app-shells/bash: 3.2_p39 dev-java/java-config: 2.1.7 dev-lang/python: 2.5.4-r2 dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r7 dev-util/cmake: 2.6.4 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.6-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.63 sys-devel/automake: 1.7.9-r1, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.6-r2, 1.10.2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.1 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.26 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.27-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="amd64" CBUILD="x86_64-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-march=k8 -O2 -pipe" CHOST="x86_64-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" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/env.d/java/ /etc/fonts/fonts.conf /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=k8 -O2 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="candy ccache distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch userprov usersandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://distfiles.gentoo.org http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/gentoo" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" LINGUAS="en it" MAKEOPTS="-j5" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" 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" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="3dnow 3dnowext X acl acpi aften akode alsa amazon amd64 amr amrnb amrwb animgif audiofile berkdb bluetooth branding bzip2 cairo ccache cdr cleartype cli cracklib crypt cscope cups curl cxx dbus dri dvd dvdr dvdread eds encode esd fam ffmpeg firefox foomaticdb gcrypt gd gdbm gif gimp gkrellm gpm gsm gstreamer gtk hardened iconv imagemagick ipod java java6 jpeg kde lame libgcrypt libssh2 logrotate loop-aes mad matroska midi mmx mmxext mng mp3 mp4 mpeg mpeg2 mplayer mudflap multilib musepack musicbrainz ncurses nls nptl nptlonly nsplugin ogg opengl openmp openssl opensslcrypt pam pcre pdf perl png ppds pppd pulseaudio python qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime readline reflection samba sdl session smp sndfile speex spell spl sqlite3 sse sse2 sse3 sse4.1 sse4.2 sse4a sse5 ssl startup-notification subversion svg svnserve swat sysfs syslog tcpd theora tiff truetype unicode usb v4l v4l2 vorbis webkit x264 xcomposite xinerama xml xorg xscreensaver xulrunner xv zlib" ALSA_CARDS="hda-intel" 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="en it" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="vesa nv nvidia vga" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY
I know what's wrong here(I bumped this package in exherbo): Since _p6, you can only bind to a different user(-u ntp:ntp) if you have USE=caps enabled. I'll look into this and make a patch. Thanks for the report.
your conf.d file needs updating