On 2/8/26 4:17 PM, Ben Knoble wrote: >> php:8.2 is an old version, which I definitely don't want to emerge >> again. Why is an updating command trying to reinstall this >> useless old version? >> >> What is causing the attempted reinstallation of this package? Why >> doesn't the command's half error message tell me? > > That I cannot say. You might try « equery d php:8.2 » to see what > depends on it, or you might try « emerge -ac » to see if you can > clean out unnecessary packages.
Ben, if we disregard Alan's somewhat historically predictable expression of anger it isn't at all confusing. You even pointed it out yourself to him: it comes from "preserved-rebuild". Preserved-rebuild shall rebuild all packages with ELF dependencies on uninstalled packages. This remains true, even if the preserved-rebuild package is eligible for removal via "emerge -ac". Pedantically, you can absolutely say that running "emerge @preserved-rebuild" and seeing it try to attempt reinstallation of php:8.2 is a cause-and-effect relationship; the former *caused* the latter. And yes, you are correct to advise Alan to (regularly!) run emerge -c to clean up useless packages. -- Eli Schwartz
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