updating the package database

[Brent McMillan <bamcmill@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca>]

	I'm having trouble getting dselect to find new packages.

	I chose the Access method as ftp and pointed it to ftp.debian.org, and
went with the defaults.  I then chose Update and it went through all the
different sections and said that the packages were already updated.  

	Now my list of installed packages is all labled Obselete and I
can't see any uninstalled packages that aren't contrib.  None of the
packages have descriptions except ones I previously installed using "dpkg
-i" and the contrib section. I havn't seen any error messages, but the 
list is obviously not updated because the last update that worked was from
a CD from cheapbytes that only contained contrib packages.

	Can any one tell me what I'm doing wrong?