[gentoo-user] Portage doesn't notice all networkmanager dependencies for rebuild

[daid kahl]

Hello,

I was "upgrading" (or downgrading technically) from ~x86 to x86.  So I
didn't update or sync for about 6 months, and then with a few exceptions for
~x86 in /etc/portage/package.keywords I was able to get to stable after
emerging ~384 packages.  This is not a highly recommended process, but it's
one of two ways to get from unstable back to stable, and generally speaking
things went just fine.

However, networkmanager was never rebuilt by portage, and I found it was not
working quite right after the updates.  The nm-applet (and other wireless
probes) could see networks, locate access points, and request WEP & WPA keys
and so on, but an IP address was never issued, and it just keeps asking for
the password.  I tried some hacks and fixes, but I can confirm all I needed
to do was rebuild networkmanager.

Given that I updated so many packages, it's very difficult for me to file a
useful bug report on it.  I do have a backup of the entire system prior to
the update, but it's honestly not worth it to me to keep switching between
backup and building packages trying to see which build networkmanager
depends on that doesn't catch the necessity to rebuild networkmanager
(especially since my system was running unstable code from 6 months ago, and
the culprit package may already be fixed).

So, I just wanted to toss this observation somewhere.  If you use
networkmanager and have wireless problems after an update, try rebuilding as
a first solution!

If anyone is just dying to know what package upgrade(s) breaks
networkmanager, I can consider spending some time on the issue with my
backups, but it seems like a very small point for so much effort.

Regards,
daid