Bug#48713: Potato libc6_2.1.2-[6|7] wont install

[<tmh31@cam.ac.uk>]

Package: libc6
Version: 2.1.2

apt and dpkg generate a very pecular error when trying to install libc6.
So i'm stuck with 2.1.2-5 and so no other packages will upgrade.

root@frontier:/home/tmh31#apt-get -f install
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libc6
1 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 42 not upgraded.
1 packages not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/1368kB of archives. After unpacking 96.3kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
100% [Scanning packages]
(Reading database ... 32160 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace libc6 2.1.2-5 (using .../libc6_2.1.2-7_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libc6 ...
/etc/cron.daily/find has a new format.
Consider using the new /etc/cron.daily/find
and modifing /etc/updatedb.conf
Old versions of /etc/cron.daily/find may not work
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.1.2-7_i386.deb
(--unpack):
 unable to install (supposed) new info file `/var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/shlibs':
Is a directory
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.1.2-7_i386.deb
E: Sub-process returned an error code (1)
   

root@frontier:/home/tmh31#ls /var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/shlibs
ls: /var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/shlibs: No such file or directory


root@frontier:/home/tmh31#uname -a
Linux frontier 2.2.12 #4 Tue Oct 5 12:03:48 GMT 1999 i686 unknown


Luckily all this doesn't render my system unusable. But it is kind of
annoying that I can't use apt because it just complains like so:
 
root@frontier:/home/tmh31#apt-get install ethereal
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
  ethereal: Depends: libpcap0 (>= 0.4-1) but it is not installed
  gconv-modules: Depends: libc6 (= 2.1.2-7) but 2.1.2-5 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or
specify a solution).