Portage: Updating individual package and dependencies in Gentoo
 

A very simple question. Is this possible?

The emerge man page says that the --update option should not be used with any target other than world or system.

I'm especially worried about big packages where there are many dependencies. Would emerge make sure that the issue is handled in such a manner as to not break the system?

Or is there any other way to upgrade individual packages without breaking any dependencies?

I'm sure the answer will be positive, but just want some sort of confirmation from Gentoo experts :D

you don't need to run with the --update option (-u) at all really... just "emerge gnome" etc... and if there's a newer version, it will install it implicitly, and remove the old ones. Personally i run "emerge -Up world", ignore the deprecation warning and then pick the ones to update after that, e.g. "emerge ntop webalizer gtk-perl"

Thank you. I'll do as you suggest.