Here is a snippet of a dselect session, a bit of info, and a couple of questions:
<snippet> Do you want to install the files fetched [y]: Installing files... dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/updates/0046' near line 1: newline in field name `#padding' DPKG ERROR Do you wish to delete the installed package (.deb) files? [y]: Removing installed files... leaving: dists/stable/main/binary-i386/libs/libpaperg_1.0.3-10.deb leaving: dists/stable/main/binary-i386/libs/zlib1g_1.1.1-0.1.deb leaving: dists/stable/main/binary-i386/libs/libdb2_2.3.16-7.deb <. . . and so on . . .> leaving: dists/stable/main/binary-i386/mail/elm-me+_2.4pl25ME+39-1.deb leaving: dists/stable/main/binary-i386/mail/mh_6.8.4-25.deb Do you want to remove debian directory? [n]: y installation script returned error exit status 1. Press RETURN to continue. </snippet> <info> I have done a hamm base installation via diskette. I can telnet into the hamm box. I can exchange files with an ftp server on my LAN. I was able to download minicom via ftp and install it with dpkg. I tried to install a couple of other .debs, but they failed. I get the same parse error msg whether I run dselect, or dkpg by itself. Now I can't get any .debs installed. </info> <questions> 1) What is the file /var/lib/dpkg/updates/0046? Is this something created used by dselect during the update phase? (BTW, the "update" phase of dselect fails every time I run it.) 2) What does "installation script returned error exit status 1" mean? (I understand what an installation script is, and I understand what an error is, but what does "exit status 1" mean?) </questions> TIA -David