Circular dependency EAPI 3 - portage and libffi [SOLVED]

[Silentsand74]

Hello,

I cannot upgrade portage to newest version, which supports EAPI >= 3,
but there is a dependency =dev-utils/libffi-3.0.11 which needs EAPI 4.
My current portage supports only EAPI 2.

Do you have any ideas how to get rid of this dependency?

[salahx]

For upgrading from really old version of Portage, you can try upgrading to an intermediates level successively via this technique.

[Silentsand74]

If I get the idea right it is about to upgrade to a little newer version.
But there is main thing, that there are only a few eligible ebuilds for portage in repository, and I cannot choose the old one, because I guess it was no longer supported and obsolete and thus deleted from repository.

[salahx]

Well as far as glibc/binutils/gcc, python, perl, and bash, there are several intermediate versions. So at least as far as those five packages goes you should be able to bootstrap to the latest versions. If you need an intermediate version that no longer in portage, fret not: You can grab it from the Attic in CVS, put it in an local overlay, and continue the process. However you shouldn't NEED to do except in pathalogical cases (proof of cocept been done for Gentoo 1.4, over 10 years old, so it can be done - although in that case its probably better just to backup and start over).

[SamuliSuominen]

You can grab a binary package of libffi or Portage from here:

32bit:
http://tinderbox.x86.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/x86/dev-libs/
http://tinderbox.x86.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/x86/sys-apps/

64bit:
http://tinderbox.x86.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/amd64/dev-libs/
http://tinderbox.x86.dev.gentoo.org/default-linux/amd64/sys-apps/

But it you don't have EAPI=3 support that would imply an very outdated system.
Backing up and going with fresh Stage3 wouldn't be bad idea if these type of issues continue giving problems.

[Silentsand74]

Wow, it helped a lot, thank you very much:).