If the user has USE="-pam" set, sys-libs/pam fails to install its pam.d due to dopamd/newpamd from eutils.eclass checking the pam USE flag before installing the files. Same goes for every other package that has a hard-dependency on sys-libs/pam and uses dopamd/newpamd from eutils.eclass. I suggest removing the USE flag check from eutils.eclass. Portage 2.0.51.19 (default-linux/x86/2004.3, gcc-3.4.3-20050110, glibc-2.3.4.20050125-r1, 2.6.11-H-R1 i686) ================================================================= System uname: 2.6.11-H-R1 i686 AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2600+ Gentoo Base System version 1.6.10 Python: dev-lang/python-2.3.5 [2.3.5 (#1, Mar 21 2005, 01:45:42)] distcc 2.18.3 i686-pc-linux-gnu (protocols 1 and 2) (default port 3632) [disabled] ccache version 2.4 [enabled] dev-lang/python: 2.3.5 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.13, 2.59-r6 sys-devel/automake: 1.5, 1.7.9-r1, 1.4_p6, 1.8.5-r3, 1.9.5, 1.6.3 sys-devel/binutils: 2.15.92.0.2-r7 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.14 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.8.1-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86 ~x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -pipe -Wl,-O1,--enable-new-dtags,--sort-common" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/lib/X11/xkb /usr/share/config /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/terminfo /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=athlon-xp -fomit-frame-pointer -ftracer -pipe -Wl,-O1,--enable-new-dtags,--sort-common" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoconfig buildpkg ccache cvs depsafeunmerge digest distlocks sandbox sfperms sign" GENTOO_MIRRORS="/var/www/localhost/htdocs/distfiles http://gentoo.mirror.at.stealer.net/ http://ftp.uni-erlangen.de/pub/mirrors/gentoo http://ftp.easynet.nl/mirror/gentoo/" LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1,--enable-new-dtags,--sort-common" MAKEOPTS="-j6" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://gentoo.mirror.at.stealer.net/gentoo-portage" USE="x86 3dnow X aalib acl acpi alsa avi berkdb bitmap-fonts cdr crypt cups curl dba dnsdb dvdr emboss encode esd exiscan exiscan-acl extensions fam flac font-server foomaticdb gd gd-external gdbm gif gnome gnutls gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml imagemagick imlib java jpeg libg++ libwww lmtp mad mbox mikmod mmx mng mp3 mpeg mysql ncurses nls nntp nptl offensive oggvorbis opengl oss pam pdflib perl png python quicktime readline samba sdl silc slang snmp spell sqlite sse ssl svg svga tcltk tcpd tiff truetype truetype-fonts type1-fonts userlocales wildlsearch wmf xml xml2 xmms xprint xv zlib linguas_de" Unset: ASFLAGS, CBUILD, CTARGET, LANG, LC_ALL
Fixed with the new eclass.