Bug#47768: apt: apt crashes my boxes

[Ian Eure <ieure@uswest.net>]

Package: apt
Version: 0.3.13
Severity: critical

In the last week, apt has crashed all three of my current potato boxes.

This is extremely bad, but may not be apt's fault.

At seemingly random times during an `apt-get upgrade', the systeom crashes
completely. I have had the same problem occur on three different systems.

System #1:
Pentium-MMX 200, 24mb RAM, current potato, self-built 2.2.11 kernel

Crashed: during `apt-get update', at "Reading package lists".

System #2:
Pentium 90, 40mb ram, current potato, self-built 2.2.12 kernel

Crashed: Once during package download, once during package install while
  upgrading.

System #3:
K6-3D 266, 192mb ram, current potato, 2.2.12 self-built kernel.

Crashed: once during package install while upgrading under X.


Apt may just be aggrivating a kernel bug, or it may be dpkg causing the crashes.

Crash symptoms:
  entire system stops responding. Numlock won't toggle, kernel magic-sysrq has
  no effect, does not respond to pings. Completely dead system. Crashes do not
  occur 100% of the time, but enough so that the last few times I have tried
  upgrading, by box hung.

Any other info I can get?

-- System Information
Debian Release: potato
Kernel Version: Linux Phalanx 2.2.12 #1 Wed Oct 6 10:49:04 PDT 1999 i586 unknown

Versions of the packages apt depends on:
ii  libc6           2.1.2-5        GNU C Library: Shared libraries and timezone
ii  libstdc++2.10   2.95.2-0pre2   The GNU stdc++ library