[gentoo-user] Strange portage behaviour

[Peter Humphrey]

Afternoon all,

On one box here, I use the same packages and distfiles directories on both the 
main system and a second, small rescue system (the latter is an alternative 
boot). The rescue system has the same profile and most of the same USE flags as 
its bigger brother, so the packages should be usable directly. The exceptions 
relate only to apps that are installed in the main system but not the rescue.

The two systems have their packages defined in sets: @core, @base and, in the 
main system, @apps. The world files are empty. I keep the rescue system up to 
date by mounting it in a chroot on the main system.

Now, when I chroot into the rescue system and 'emerge -uaDvNk @core @base', 
portage reports that it can't use the postfix package because of different USE 
flags, but it does the update I've asked for. Postfix is in @apps in the main 
system, but it's not installed in the rescue system.

Moreover, if I specify -K instead of -k to emerge, it proposes to install 
every package that's present in $PKGDIR.

What can I do about this? Is it expected behaviour?

Or, is there a way to specify 'all installed category/packages that have 
usable binary packages'? At present, 'installed' is being ignored.

-- 
Regards,
Peter.