Otavio, thanks for that hint. I had 'apt-cache search' segfaulting, and removing pkgcache.bin solved that problem. I wonder how that file got corrupted - I can't remember an unclean shutdown, and if it happened during some upgrade I would remember. Additionally, I only use ext3 in ordered data mode, so the filesystem should guarantee consistency, to some degree. Maybe there is a bug hidden in apt, that sometimes corrupts the pkgcache? Jan