Bug#188161: hits again

[Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org>]

# So far I I don't think that this has a major effect on apt's usability
severity 188161 normal
thanks

> Essential: yes
> Depends: kernel-image-2.4.19+nfs-ngroups+preempt-station (= Custom.1.2),
> adduser, apt, apt-utils, at, base-config, base-files, base-passwd, bash,
> bc, biff, bin86, bind9-host, binutils, bison, bsdmainutils, bsdutils,
> console-common, console-data, console-tools, console-tools-libs, cpio,
> cpp, cpp-2.95, cpp-3.0, cron, dc, debconf, debianutils, dhcp3-client,
> diff, dnsutils, doc-debian, doc-linux-text, dpkg, dpkg-dev, e2fsprogs, ed,
> exim, fdutils, file, fileutils, findutils, finger, flex, ftp, g++,
> g++-2.95, gcc, gcc-2.95, gcc-3.0, gcc-3.0-base, gdb, gettext-base, gnupg,
> gnupg-doc, grep, groff-base, gzip, hostname, iamerican, ibritish,
> ifupdown, info, ipchains, ipmasqadm, iptables, ispell, klogd, less, libc6,
> libc6-dev, libcap1, libdb2, libdb3, libdns5, libgcc1, libgdbmg1, libident,
> libisc4, libldap2, liblockfile1, liblwres1, libncurses5, libnewt0,
> libnss-db, libpam-modules, libpam-runtime, libpam0g, libpcap0, libpcre3,
> libperl5.6, libpng2, libpopt0, libreadline4, libsasl7, libssl0.9.6,
> libstdc++2.10-dev, libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2, libstdc++3, libwrap0, lilo,
> locales, login, logrotate, lsof, lynx, m4, mailx, make, makedev, man-db,
> manpages, manpages-dev, mawk, mbr, mime-support, modconf, modutils, mount,
> mpack, mtools, mtr, mutt, nano, ncurses-base, ncurses-bin, ncurses-term,
> net-tools, netbase, netkit-inetd, netkit-ping, nfs-common, nvi, passwd,
> patch, pciutils, perl, perl-base, perl-modules, pidentd, portmap, ppp,
> pppconfig, pppoe, pppoeconf, procmail, procps, psmisc, python,
> python-newt, python2.1, rcs, reportbug, sed, setserial, sharutils,
> shellutils, slang1, ssh, strace, sysklogd, syslinux, sysvinit, tar,
> tasksel, tcpd, tcsh, telnet, texinfo, textutils, time, util-linux,
> util-linux-locales, vacation, wenglish, whiptail, whois, zlib1g,
> x-window-system, kde, gpm, tree

This is definitely a little weird.  Why do you have so many dependencies on
essential packages?  Can you try removing all of the essential packages from
this list?  e.g., base-files, base-passwd, bash, debianutils, dpkg, etc.
This will at least clean things up and perhaps make it easier to see what is
happening, and I suppose it might affect the problem as well and help to
narrow it down.  Especially when you turn on some debugging to find out what
is happening.  If the problem is still there when you remove the essential
packages, remove things one by one until you find a smaller set of packages
which exhibits the problem.

-- 
 - mdz