dist-upgrde from slink to potato

[Jean-Paul Blaquiere <japester@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au>]

I tried upgrading slink to potato last night on a clean install and it
complained and othe stuff depends on debconf being configured (lynx, netbase
and a couple of others)
help?
debconf dies with:
beowulf:~# dpkg --configure debconf
Setting up debconf (0.2.79) ...
Can't locate Data/Dumper.pm in @INC (@INC contains:
/usr/lib/perl5/5.004/alpha-linux /usr/lib/perl5/5.004 /usr/local/lib/site_perl/alpha-linux
/usr/local/lib/site_perl /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/lib/perl5/alpha-linux/5.004
/usr/lib/perl5/5.004/alpha-linux .) at /usr/lib/perl5/Debian/DebConf/ConfigDb.pm line 218.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/lib/perl5/Debian/DebConf/ConfigDb.pm
line 218.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/debconf/frontend line 9.
dpkg: error processing debconf (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 2
 Errors were encountered while processing:
  debconf

regards,
-- 
Jean-Paul Blaquiere
   japester@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au
   	gotta www.wibble.org again