walt wrote:
[...]
> Why does pkg_chk use both /var/db/pkg and /var/db/pkgsrc,
> and is there a workaround for this (apparent) conflict
> with portage?

For the benefit of future googlers, here is the answer:

The reason that /var/db/pkgsrc was 'hard coded' into my
pkg_chk was that I had PKG_DBDIR set to that path in my
mk.conf.  If I had picked *any* other name there would
have been no conflict and I would not have had this bug.

The problem is that /var/db/pkgsrc is *the* obvious name
to pick if you want to avoid the name /var/db/pkg. <sigh>

All I had to do is re-install pkg_install and pkg_chk
using the default paths and now everything works normally.

Perhaps the 'bootstrap' program should refuse to accept
PKG_DBDIR = /var/db/pkgsrc as being 'reserved'?