Im running Gentoo 2004 now, but I having problems emerging Xfree86. The compiling phase goes in an endless loop on package "media-libs-fontconfig-2.2.1". It does this whether Im emerging Xfree or the package by itself. the emerge log doesnt show in detail where it is having problems. Question 1: Do I need this package?
Question 2: Where can I find a more accurate log of where is has an error than /var/log/emerge.log?(the last line recorded just says "(1 of 1) Compiling/Merging (media-libs/fontconfig-2.2.1"

Question 1: Do I need this package?

No...unless you want a GUI.

What do you mean by endless loop?? Please post error messages or be more specific.

Well it doesnt give any error messages, so there is nothing in the log for me to tell you. I wish I knew more, and i could solve it myself. What I know is, that it starts over the compile process a couple lines after, "Checking whether build environment is sane...".
The error is not there, but a few lines below it(another "check"), it just goes too fast for me to see where it is restarting at, and why.
So, the gist is, at a certain point in the compile process, the process goes back to the beginining and continues to do this. And I dont know when. I hope that is more specific.

this may sound stupid, but it wouldn't emerge because the date was wrong.
I hang my head in shame.

LOL...man that sucks. Oh well you got it now

Live and learn I say. I once ran around my house cursing at everything because it seemed that my samba server suddenly stopped working. An hour later I realized the network cable was unplugged.