I don't know whether this should be an enhancement or whether it's a bug or whether I simply don't use the right configuration, but it takes ages to run `PORTDIR_OVERLAY=/foo emerge --nodeps cat/pkg' when that overlay contains profiles/updates. I often do this when a CVS update on the gentoo-x86 tree gives me early access to a new or changed ebuild, but since FEATURES=-fixpackages is now gone, it seems to always run, and takes ages to complete (especially since all of PORTDIR, PORTDIR_OVERLAY and PKGDIR are shared over NFS). The only workaround appears to be to delete profiles/updates/* on the overlay, and `cvs update' when I actually need it.
Of interest as well is that at the point when this happens, it doesn't matter whether there is any difference in content between PORTDIR/profiles/updates and the overlay. Maybe the files' *time is taken into account, but touching all the files in either profiles/updates does not seem to have the desired effect.
You should use --package-moves=n to temporarily disable package moves. I actually have this setting in my EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, since I frequently switch trees for testing purposes, and I really only want package moves applied once every few weeks when I do full system updates.
Ah yes, that actually skips the updates. I'll leave it to you to decide what to do with this report. Maybe this warrants some more documentation about the move from fixpackages to --package-moves.
Bug 386871 is the only other bug that I remember being filed about the fixpackages thing. I guess we can wait until after this change goes to stable, and then see what kind of reaction we get from the stable users.
I guess the trouble is that make.conf(5) no longer mentions fixpackages, but doesn't mention its replacement either. emerge(1) does mention --package-moves, but does not mention that this is the new fixpackages. emerge(1) appears to mention the string "packages" about a hundred times, and make.conf mentions it around two dozen times. :)
I've added a man page for the fixpackages(1) command, and cross-referenced it in the emerge(1) --package-moves docs: http://git.overlays.gentoo.org/gitweb/?p=proj/portage.git;a=commit;h=c93a46851c43f7e8539a67b2376dc8f55af41789 So, now searching for 'fixpackages' in the emerge(1) man page will turn up a the --package-moves option. Is that better?
That will do nicely. :)
This is fixed in 2.1.10.40 and 2.2.0_alpha80.