> > How come xf86-input-evdev is needed but not a dependency?
> > Is it a bug in the ebuild?

Good question.  As far as I know with regards my usage, it's fine...
however, it has been some time since I updated so it would probably be a
good idea to review all the USE settings available.  My USE settings are
as follows:

"a52 aac acpi alsa -arts -avahi bash-completion branding bzip2 cairo
calendar cddb cdinstall cdr cracklib crypt cscope css dbus dri dvd dvdr
dvdread eds emboss encode esd evo exif fam ffmpeg fftw firefox ftp gd
gif gimp glut gnome gphoto2 gpm gsl gstreamer gtk hal hddtemp icc java
java6 jpeg jpeg2k kde kerberos krb4 ldap libcaca mad midi mikmod mmx mp3
mpeg mplayer musicbrainz nls nocd nsplugin nvidia ogg opengl -oss pam
pdf php perl png postgres ppds qt3 qt3support qt4 quicktime scanner sdl
sockets spell sse sse2 ssl svg svga tcl tcp tcpd tiff tk truetype
unicode usb videos vim-syntax vorbis win32codecs X xcomposite xml
xscreensaver xv xvid xvmc zlib"

Additionally, the INPUT_DEVICES is set to "evdev".

The stage3 version I used (downloaded some time ago) is
stage3-i686-20100126.tar.bz2.  Perhaps what I experienced is something
already corrected.  There was an associating portage at the time as
well, downloaded on Feb 20th.

> > Also, when I emerged xorg, it pulled in evdev, keyboard and mouse
> > drivers as I have them set in make.conf.

That's interesting.... it raises a question - at least to myself - if
there's a particular USE setting to trigger evdev.  Examination of
the /usr/portage/profiles/use.desc file shows no indication of such.  Is
there some other indicator that should be part of the make.conf file
beyond the USE settings and the INPUT_DEVICES setting?

Final note: for my rebuild, I'm doing so on a separate partition, logged
in there so it should be a clean environment to work in.

Roger S.