UNSTABLE USERS: dpkg, doc-linux-html, and MD5sum fields

[Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org>]

I'm getting three or four reports a day about errors like this:

dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/available' near line 88004
package doc-linux-html':
 empty file details field `MD5sum'
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)

For the record, this is *not* a bug in doc-linux-html. It's a buffer
overrun in the way dpkg updates the available file (possibly triggered
by doc-linux-html having a longer Size: field than most packages,
although I wouldn't swear to that). I talked to one of the dpkg
developers a couple of nights ago, and the mails I've seen since then
suggest that it will be fixed before woody is released. There's no need
to mail me further information or file more bug reports.

This bug will only affect you if you use 'apt-get update'. People who
use 'dselect update' will not be affected. If dselect is set up to use
apt, as it has been by default since potato, then 'dselect update' does
everything 'apt-get update' does and more, so if you like you can
consider this yet another reason to use 'dselect update'. :)

Cheers,

-- 
Colin Watson                                  [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]