[gentoo-dev] portage-1.9.0_pre1

[Chris Houser]

I've just added a portage-1.9.0_pre1 ebuild.  It is portage 1.8.0 plus
the ability to run as a non-root user.  In fact, it defaults to running
as non-root, unless you use the '--stayroot' command-line option on
either ebuild or emerge.

You'll probably want to chown your /var/tmp/portage tree to whatever
user you normally develop as -- 'chouser.users' in my case.

This package is masked, so you'll have to either adjust your
/usr/portage/profiles/package.mask or just use ebuild to merge it.
Either way, it *replaces* your existing portage, so if you want to go
back to a non-experimental portage, you'll have to merge whichever one
you want.

There is still work to be done -- a couple of known bugs and another
feature or two to add, but >90% of the ebuilds and operations that I do
work fine, and using the --stayroot flag works around another 8%.

Note that currently you cannot merge the sandbox package on top of this,
but there is no reason that future versions cannot be compatible.  In
fact, this is a goal, so that future versions of portage can have both
path sandboxing and user-id protection.

So have fun -- let me know if you find problems, and I'll try to fix
them.

--Chouser