Sorry, I managed to reproduce it by installing and then removing kcontrol again. and attach some useful info this time (hopefully!)
Also, devpts is mounted. devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw,gid=5,mode=620) Notable lines in the strace file: 3180ish to the end = Input/Output errors just before the read() hang The last few lines for the impatient :) select(28, [0 25 27], NULL, NULL, {1, 0}) = 1 (in [27], left {1, 0}) read(27, 0xbfd29078, 1024) = -1 EIO (Input/output error) waitpid(16621, 0xbfd316c4, WNOHANG) = 0 ---snip lots of these--- select(28, [0 25 27], NULL, NULL, {1, 0}) = 1 (in [27], left {1, 0}) read(27, 0xbfd29078, 1024) = ? ERESTARTSYS (To be restarted) --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) @ 0 (0) --- read(27, here's a backtrace of apt-get on another `apt-get install kcontrol` (had to kill the one I got the strace from( (gdb) bt #0 0xffffe410 in __kernel_vsyscall () #1 0xb7d50cb3 in read () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 #2 0xb7f949d7 in pkgDPkgPM::DoTerminalPty () from /usr/lib/libapt-pkg-libc6.6-6.so.4.5 #3 0xb7f9a5ce in pkgDPkgPM::Go () from /usr/lib/libapt-pkg-libc6.6-6.so.4.5 #4 0xb7f46558 in pkgPackageManager::DoInstallPostFork () from /usr/lib/libapt-pkg-libc6.6-6.so.4.5 #5 0xb7f465dd in pkgPackageManager::DoInstall () from /usr/lib/libapt-pkg-libc6.6-6.so.4.5 #6 0x0805c2c8 in ?? () #7 0x08060eb2 in ?? () #8 0xb7f29b2b in CommandLine::DispatchArg () from /usr/lib/libapt-pkg-libc6.6-6.so.4.5 #9 0x0804ea1b in ?? () #10 0xb7ca3050 in __libc_start_main () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6 #11 0x0804cec1 in ?? () (gdb) HTH, and feel free to let me know if there's any other info that would come in handy :) ** Attachment added: "strace after apt-get remove kcontrol" http://launchpadlibrarian.net/10056217/dpkgstrace -- apt-get blocks on /dev/ptmx a lot https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/148806 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is the bug contact for Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs