My apologies for wasting everybody's time. I think that I misinterpreted https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Layman and did a mix of the config method for both version 2.1.0 and later as well as versions prior to 2.1.0 Needless to say, the system was badly confused.
I removed all overlays, unmerged layman, removed all directories/files related to layman, and the entry in make.conf. Then I did a fresh install... emerge layman layman -S layman -a palemoon It works fine now. -- Walter Dnes <waltd...@waltdnes.org> I don't run "desktop environments"; I run useful applications
