A recent "emerge -u world" brought in KDE 3.2.0, which is running well. I attempted to remove the old version with: emerge -C kde-3.1.5 Resulting in: kde-base/kde selected: 3.1.5 protected: none omitted: 3.2.0 >>> 'Selected' packages are slated for removal. >>> 'Protected' and 'omitted' packages will not be removed. >>> Waiting 5 seconds before starting... >>> (Control-C to abort)... >>> Unmerging in: 5 4 3 2 1 >>> Unmerging kde-base/kde-3.1.5... No package files given... Grabbing a set. mylines: ['r'] list index out of range * Caching service dependencies... nothing seems to have been removed. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. 2. 3. root@triffid rick # emerge info Portage 2.0.50-r1 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.4.25) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.25 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) Processor Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.13 distcc 2.12.1 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] ccache version 2.3 [enabled] Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.58-r1 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.7.7 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-march=athlon -O3 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3.2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/mozilla/defaults/pref /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-march=athlon -O3 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="ftp://cs.ubishops.ca/pub/gentoo ftp://sunsite.ualberta.ca/pub/unix/Linux/gentoo http://distro.ibiblio.org/gentoo" MAKEOPTS="-j3" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.ca.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage/" USE="3dfx 3dnow X acpi alsa apm arts avi berkdb cdr crypt cups encode esd foomaticdb gdbm gif gphoto2 gpm gtk gtk2 guile imlib imlibjava java jpeg kde libg++ libwww mad mikmod mmx motif mozilla mpeg ncurses nls oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python qt qtmt quicktime readline scanner sdl slang spell sse ssl svga tcltk tcpd tetex truetype usb x86 xml2 xmms xv zlib"
Because "kde" is just a metapackage for all of the ebuilds in /usr/portage/kde-base. You need to uninstall them.