Re: [gentoo-user] preserved-rebuild will not run at all

[Alan McKinnon]

Apparently, though unproven, at 22:35 on Sunday 12 December 2010, 
covici@××××××××××.com did opine thusly:

> Mark Knecht <markknecht@×××××.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 10:48 AM,  <covici@××××××××××.com> wrote:
> > > I have a fair number of preserved-libs, but it will not run at all and
> > > gives the rather strange message:
> > > Calculating dependencies... done!
> > >
> > > emerge: there are no ebuilds to satisfy "dev-tex/mplib:0".
> > > (dependency required by "@preserved-rebuild")
> > >
> > > Now I have no such package and an eix seems to indicate that there is
> > > no such, so how do I get this rebuild going again?
> > >
> > > Thanks in advance for all your help.
> > >
> > > --
> > > Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
> > > How do
> > > you spend it?
> > >
> > >         John Covici
> > >         covici@××××××××××.com
> >
> > Probably searching for packages that depend on mplib, (equery) then
> > emerge -C them (it's what I'd probably do - depends...) then re-emerge
> > them if you still use them? Note that I'd go back to finding what
> > members of the world file need all this stuff and emerge that with
> > -DuN, maybe even doing a -depclean after the emerge -C. It's all a
> > guess though.
> >
> > Seems like this sort of thing happens when a package gets dumped in an
> > upgrade but somehow the ebuilds or package manager don't get updated
> > or just don't work perfectly.
> >
> > Again, all a guess but I can usually figure it out looking at equery
> > output, etc.
>
> Well, there was a package, but no ebuild, so I deleted the package and
> its going, but someone broke something.  I wish you could not delete an
> ebuild if you have the package, or it would put it somewhere to prevent
> this kind of thing.

That will make portage store gigantic numbers of old and since upgraded 
versions just in case maybe you might need it perhaps. Sounds like a lot of 
pain for no gain. Sounds like exactly the kind of thing any decent dev will 
reject.

Besides, you can always get the old ebuild back from the Attic, or you could 
copy it somewhere safe from /var/db/pkg/ before you delete it.

Mark has the correct solution. mplib is not needed and was deleted. However, 
it's in preserved-rebuild as being used by something. In all likelyhood that 
something uses mplib purely optionally and you should just rebuild that 
something. You provided no output so no-one here knows how to fix your 
problem.


-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com