An IRC conversation with Chris Halls had him suggest that #283923 could indeed be #172339.
I foudn a similar problem during an install with the Japanese language. I attach the relevant parts of the base-config.log. It seems there that a dependency cycle between gs, gs-gpl and gs-common triggers the error. Again, the problem happens precisely at the end of a full system installation, with the desktop task being installed by tasksel (and thus indeed by aptitude). For instance, in the Italian install, the following tasks are being installed: italian, italian-desktop, desktop Excepert from the log of Japanese install attached --
libgtop2-2 (2.6.0-4) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ... gstreamer0.8-alsa (0.8.5-1) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ... dpkg: ��¸�ط��������ˤ��� gs-gpl �����꤬�Ǥ��ޤ���: gs-gpl �ϰʲ��˰�¸(depends)���ޤ�: gs-common (>= 0.2) ...������: �ѥå����� gs-common �Ϥޤ����ꤵ���Ƥ��ޤ����� dpkg: gs-gpl ���ɤ߹��ߥ��顼�Ǥ�(--configure): ��¸�ط������� - �������������ޤ��� libxt6 (4.3.0.dfsg.1-8) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ... kamera (3.2.3-1.1) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ... kghostview (3.2.3-1.1) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ... gs-common (0.3.6-0.1) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ... Updating font configuration of gs... Cleaning up category psprint.. Cleaning up category cmap.. Cleaning up category cid.. Cleaning up category truetype.. Cleaning up category gsfontderivative.. Cleaning up category type3.. Cleaning up category type1.. Updating category type1.. Updating category type3.. Updating category gsfontderivative.. Updating category truetype.. Updating category cid.. Updating category cmap.. Updating category psprint.. libhtml-tree-perl (3.18-1) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ... kdeprint (3.2.2-1) �����ꤷ�Ƥ��ޤ� ...
