Well, I said I'd log dpkg debug info when I upgraded my other machine; you'll be glad to know that the bug is at least reproducible :-> The result of dpkg -D3773 -i xbase_3.3.2.3a-8.1.deb can be found at: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~pmaydell/misc/dpkglog.txt Peter Maydell