[Nottingham] Gentoo experts: emerge file collisions!?

[Richard Ward]

Martin wrote:
> Ok folks, on Gentoo, how do I fix this one?
> 
> Package 'sys-libs/glibc-2.9_p20081201-r2' NOT merged due to file collisions.
> 
> 
> That's from attempting:
> 
> emerge --update system
> 
> These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
> 
> Calculating dependencies... done!
> [ebuild  NS   ] sys-libs/glibc-2.9_p20081201-r2 [2.8_p20080602-r1] 
> USE="nls -debug -gd -glibc-omitfp (-hardened) (-multilib) -profile 
> (-selinux) -vanilla"
> [ebuild     U ] sys-devel/autoconf-2.63-r1 [2.63]
> 
> 
> All on:
> 2.6.30-gentoo-r4_ml_epia10 #1 Wed Aug 12 15:19:38 BST 2009 i586 VIA 
> Samuel 2 CentaurHauls GNU/Linux
> 
> 
> Any clues?
> 
> Cheers,
> Martin
> 

A couple of ideas:
1) Run your emerge command with `--verbose', see what the conflicting 
files are.
2) Try an `emerge -pvDu world' (pretend verbose deep update) which 
should show every possible update, and see if any of those files look 
like ones that would belong to one of the listed updates.
3) Do you have any exciting packages unmasked? It could be that some 
dependency isn't also being dragged in to the update.

I'd imagine the --verbose option would probably shed most light on whats 
going on.

Richard