+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #487192 +++ For Bug 487192 and maybe earlier timezone-data is touching live system in pkg_setup phase. This makes things like ebuild timezone-data-2014f.ebuild prepare fail for regular users. Shouldn't hacks like these be done in pkg_preinst?
the point of pkg_setup is to allow process to modify the rootfs, so there is no bug in that regard iirc, the symlink modification was done in pkg_setup because pkg_preinst was too late for the various portage checks (collision detection / filetype changes / etc...) -- they run after src_install finishes but before pkg_preinst runs.
this is no longer an issue starting with timezone-data-2015c-r1
