[gentoo-user] Gentoo falling apart for me after either abandoning trying to install "Kolab" as overlay - or after upgrading to default/linux/x86/10.0

[Steve]

I'm not entirely sure where to start... but, the sequence to get me 
where I am now runs something like this:

1. Upgraded to  default/linux/x86/10.0 (actually, I chose the server 
profile... no particular reason - except that this box is headless...) 
when running my regular-ish "emerge  -uDNav world" told me to do so - 
saying that my old profile was deprecated.

2. Started following the howto for kolab - but, this package, it seems, 
is far more problematic than I wish to deal with - I cancelled this 
after the emerge stage had installed a few decompression tools - as I 
read more about issues with the package under Gentoo.

3, (Possibly rashly) I did a "emerge -av --depclean" - and thereafter 
things started to go screwy - eix and PHP failed, for example.

4. Tried to do a revdep-rebuild - which identified 4 packages - but 
keeled over... having reported that the profile wasn't supported - 
complaining about an issue with a Fortran compiler associated with 
blas-reference, in-turn required by R (which I removed from world as I 
no-longer need it.)

5. revdep-rebuild now fails with PHP5 - so, I tried removing and 
re-installing PHP5... which also failed.  There was a prominent warning 
about my profile being un-supported, so I switched to "[1]   
default/linux/x86/10.0 *" (as opposed to "[4]   
default/linux/x86/10.0/server") hoping this might help.

6. PHP still won't install... and I can't even do an "emerge -uDNav 
world" - and, now, apr won't build... apparently having some sort of 
problem with finding gcc... I've attached the build log from 
/var/tmp/portage/dev-libs/apr-util-1.3.9/work/apr-util-1.3.9/config.log.  
revedep-rebuild also fails... this time with

--
checking for i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc... i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
checking for C compiler default output... configure: error: C compiler 
cannot create executables
check `config.log' for details.

!!! Please attach the following file when seeking support:
!!! /var/tmp/portage/net-analyzer/iftop-0.17/work/iftop-0.17/config.log
 *
 * ERROR: net-analyzer/iftop-0.17 failed.
 * Call stack:
 *               ebuild.sh, line   49:  Called src_compile
 *             environment, line 2231:  Called _eapi0_src_compile
 *               ebuild.sh, line  598:  Called econf
 *               ebuild.sh, line  534:  Called die
 * The specific snippet of code:
 *                      die "econf failed"
 *  The die message:
 *   econf failed
 *
 * If you need support, post the topmost build errolocate 
i686-pc-linux-gnu-gccr
--

Clutching at straws, I tried this:

$ locate i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
/usr/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc-4.3.4
/usr/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.3.4/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc-4.3.4
/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.3.4/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
$ for i in `locate i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc`; do
for> ls -l $i
for> done
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 58 Nov  4 18:45 
/usr/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc-4.3.4 -> 
/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.3.4/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 9568 Feb 27  2008 /usr/bin/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 21 Nov  4 18:45 
/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.3.4/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc-4.3.4 -> 
i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 208396 Nov  4 18:45 
/usr/i686-pc-linux-gnu/gcc-bin/4.3.4/i686-pc-linux-gnu-gcc
$


I presume that this is a profile issue - but I'm unclear what the fault 
might be... I'm reluctant to continue hacking as, I suspect, I'm more 
likely to break things than stumble across an appropriate fix.

Can anyone tell me why emerge is having such a problem with my compiler 
- and, hopefully, ideally, how best to resolve this?