This problem is not solved because it causes the Debian Installer to fail on a NSLU2. In practice, one can manually delete the *.bin files in /var/cache/apt/ during an install (I haven't tried to see if it fixes the problem), but I expect that this procedure is not the user friendly installation experience that the Debian Installer team is looking for :-)
The problem does seem to lie either with the cache files or with files in /var/lib/dpkg, although I suspect that it is the former. Attached is a diff of /var/lib/dpkg before and after I manually install a deb using dpkg (gdb in this case). Everything in the diff looks ok to me. The only other changes in /var/lib/apt and /var/cache/apt occurs in the package cache files. Specifically, before I manually install a deb with dpkg: -rw-r--r-- 1 gordon gordon 6422636 2006-12-01 17:17 pkgcache.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 gordon gordon 6422586 2006-12-01 17:17 srcpkgcache.bin and after I manually install a deb with dpkg: -rw-r--r-- 1 gordon gordon 6422686 2006-12-03 14:49 pkgcache.bin -rw-r--r-- 1 gordon gordon 6422586 2006-12-01 17:17 srcpkgcache.bin The size of pkgcache.bin changes. So it looks like there is a corruption of some sort in the package cache files. I can send these files if somebody wants to have a look at them. For now, I'm going to try the installation again, and when the problem occurs, I'm going to save the pkgcache.bin file, fix it by manually installing a deb, and then replace the new pkgcache.bin file with the old one to see if the problem returns. Gordon -- Gordon Farquharson -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]