Recently a new Gentoo package was added – sys-apps/systemd-utils, which should replace three separate packages sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles, sys-boot/systemd-boot and sys-fs/udev. As the sys-fs/udev is one of the core packages in the OpenRC world and it can trigger multiple blocking errors and dependency problems.
The sys-apps/systemd-utils has three USE variables for the three replacing packages – udev, boot, and tmpfiles, so the user might add them in make.conf file.
It’s worth noting when upgrading to the sys-apps/systemd-utils, the sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles and sys-boot/systemd-boot will be removed, but sys-fs/udev is staying in the system with version sys-fs/udev-250 and above. The sys-fs/udev-250 would always pull in sys-apps/systemd-utils[udev] as a dependency. Despite the names including systemd, these packages do not depend on systemd and are meant to be used in OpenRC system.
There is Gentoo news about this upgrade and it can be read with eselect. Check out the article ending for more information.
Here is what a blocking could look like:
root@srv ~ # emerge -vau world
......
......
[ebuild U ] dev-lang/php-8.0.27:8.0::gentoo [8.0.25:8.0::gentoo] USE="acl bcmath berkdb bzip2 calendar cli ctype curl enchant exif fileinfo filter flatfile fpm ftp gd gdbm gmp iconv imap intl ipv6 jit mhash mysql mysqli nls opcache pcntl pdo phar posix readline session session-mm sharedmem simplexml soap sockets sqlite ssl tidy tokenizer truetype unicode xml xmlreader xmlwriter xslt zip zlib -apache2 -apparmor -argon2 -cdb -cgi -cjk -coverage -debug -embed -ffi -firebird -inifile -iodbc -kerberos -ldap -ldap-sasl -libedit -lmdb -mssql -oci8-instant-client -odbc -phpdbg -postgres -qdbm (-selinux) -snmp -sodium -spell -systemd -sysvipc -test -threads -tokyocabinet -webp -xpm" 10549 KiB
[ebuild UD ] sys-apps/man-pages-posix-2013a::gentoo [2017a::gentoo] 909 KiB
[ebuild U ] sys-apps/openrc-0.46::gentoo [0.45.2-r1::gentoo] USE="ncurses netifrc pam unicode -audit -bash -debug -newnet (-selinux) -sysv-utils" 242 KiB
[blocks B ] sys-fs/eudev ("sys-fs/eudev" is soft blocking sys-apps/systemd-utils-251.10-r1)
[blocks B ] sys-apps/systemd-utils[udev] ("sys-apps/systemd-utils[udev]" is soft blocking sys-fs/eudev-3.2.11-r3)
Total: 113 packages (97 upgrades, 1 downgrade, 15 new), Size of downloads: 554077 KiB
Conflict: 3 blocks (2 unsatisfied)
* Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be
* installed at the same time on the same system.
(sys-fs/eudev-3.2.11-r3:0/0::gentoo, installed) pulled in by
sys-fs/eudev required by @selected
(sys-apps/systemd-utils-251.10-r1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) pulled in by
sys-apps/systemd-utils[tmpfiles] required by (sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles-250:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) USE="" ABI_X86="(64)"
sys-apps/systemd-utils[tmpfiles] required by (virtual/tmpfiles-0-r3:0/0::gentoo, installed) USE="" ABI_X86="(64)"
sys-apps/systemd-utils[udev] required by (virtual/udev-217-r5:0/0::gentoo, installed) USE="" ABI_X86="(64)"
For more information about Blocked Packages, please refer to the following
section of the Gentoo Linux x86 Handbook (architecture is irrelevant):
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:X86/Working/Portage#Blocked_packages
root@srv ~ # emerge -va sys-apps/systemd-utils
These are the packages that would be merged, in order:
Calculating dependencies... done!
Dependency resolution took 0.84 s.
[ebuild N ] acct-group/audio-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/cdrom-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/dialout-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/disk-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/kmem-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/lp-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/sgx-0::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/tape-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/tty-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] acct-group/video-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB
[ebuild N ] sys-apps/systemd-utils-251.10-r1::gentoo USE="acl kmod (split-usr) tmpfiles udev -boot (-selinux) -sysusers -test" ABI_X86="(64) -32 (-x32)" 11194 KiB
[blocks B ] <sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles-250 ("<sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles-250" is soft blocking sys-apps/systemd-utils-251.10-r1)
[blocks B ] sys-fs/eudev ("sys-fs/eudev" is soft blocking sys-apps/systemd-utils-251.10-r1)
[blocks B ] sys-apps/systemd-utils[udev] ("sys-apps/systemd-utils[udev]" is soft blocking sys-fs/eudev-3.2.11-r3)
Total: 11 packages (11 new), Size of downloads: 11194 KiB
Conflict: 3 blocks (3 unsatisfied)
* Error: The above package list contains packages which cannot be
* installed at the same time on the same system.
(sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles-249.9:0/0::gentoo, installed) pulled in by
sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles required by @selected
(sys-apps/systemd-utils-251.10-r1:0/0::gentoo, ebuild scheduled for merge) pulled in by
sys-apps/systemd-utils
(sys-fs/eudev-3.2.11-r3:0/0::gentoo, installed) pulled in by
sys-fs/eudev required by @selected
For more information about Blocked Packages, please refer to the following
section of the Gentoo Linux x86 Handbook (architecture is irrelevant):
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:X86/Working/Portage#Blocked_packages
A screenshot from the command line, which is colored properly.
To solve the soft blocking, first, deselect the old packages, which are soft blocking the sys-apps/systemd-utils. In the above example, the problematic packages are sys-fs/eudev and sys-apps/systemd-tmpfiles. Deselect the packages and try to build only sys-apps/systemd-utils:
Keep on reading!