dselect/dpkg problem: install/remove

["John Houwen" <slyder@voicenet.com>]

I seem to have a similar problem with dselect/dpkg, but not with the 
dpkg-ftp option (haven't gotten that far yet) 

The dselect package has given me problems from the first. I made a 
few errors in my 1st attempt at the CDRom install, but managed to get 
most of the selected packages unpacked & installed.  Where dselect 
hung was on the kernel-source/kernel-headers packages. (where is 
local/binary ??) 

I have tried to remove these packages, but upon running either 
dselect or dpkg I get something along the lines of "Package is in an 
unstable/condititon please re-install before attempting to remove"

As I do not clearly understand the package system yet, I'm afraid to 
simply delete the packages and mess up dpkg's database.  I can't 
install the package, can't re-install the package, and dselect/dpgk 
won't remove it!

Coming from the SlackWare Distribution, I learned how to compile &
install programs using make, so there was no problem using the code 
to create a kernel & boot floppy, which I now use to bring up the 
system.  There are some problems with this too, but that will wait 
for another time.

Can anyone help?