mailman install trouble

[al davis <ad20@freeelectron.net>]

I am having trouble installing mailman.

When I do "sudo apt-get install mailman" .. it gets as far as 
the language selection, and then loops.

I enter "en" (or nothing) where it belongs, save it, exit the 
editor, or exit without saving, then it comes up with the same 
screen again.  Repeat forever. (until I kill -9 ...)

The system is rather old, with Etch, kept current.  Everything 
else has been working fine for a long time.  It is set up as a 
web and email server, with apache2, exim4, python 2.4.4, ....

I checked archives, google, etc..  and I didn't see any 
reference to this problem.

ideas?