I think this has to be a bug in dpkg or a one-time freak accident where a line break somehow got deleted from /var/lib/dpkg/available or the package lists that were used to build it.
** Changed in: libtar (Ubuntu) Status: New => Invalid -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1160236 Title: installArchives() failed: Extracting templates from packages: ... Preconfiguring packages ... dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 27716 package 'libtar0': `Provides' field, invalid package name `libtarDepends': character `' not allowed (only letters, digits and characters `-+._') Error in function: To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/libtar/+bug/1160236/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs