[gentoo-user] updating ALL packages

My normal updating procedure is

EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS="--ask --deep --tree --verbose --jobs --load-average=5"
emerge --update --changed-use --keep-going  @world

I had mistakenly thought this would update all packages not at the
latest version (subject to package.accept_keywords, package.mask, ...).

I now realize that it only does this for the packages in world and then
follows the dependency tree.  So if package A in world is up to date, A
depends of B, and a new version of B appears, B will not be updated.

As a result eix-test-obsolete finds that I have packages installed that
are no longer in the database.

I could do 

emerge --update the-2-dozen-such-packages

Is that wise?

thanks,
allan

PS This system is in the midst of the multi-month bothwick "goingstable"
procedure.  I don't know if that is relevant to the decision.

Neil Bothwick wrote:
>
> You can generate the list with
>
> qlist -ICv | sed -e 's/^/~/' -e 's/-r[1-9]$//' \
>     >/etc/portage/package.accept_keywords/goingstable
>
> This allows revision updates, which is useful as they usually contain bug
> or security fixes, but doesn't allow any higher versions.
>
> Occasionally running eix-test-obsolete will let you know which entries
> have become redundant because stable has caught up with them.
>
> I recently used it to move a machine from testing to stable. The one
> caveat is that sometimes the testing version your have installed, and in
> package.accept_keywords, is removed from the tree so portage wants to
> downgrade to the latest stable version. You have the choice of letting
> this happen or unmasking a later testing version.

[ subsequently he recommended using the latter choice ]