dpkg and apt-get cannot work

[Yixuan Wang]

hi, friends,

I have got on well with Ubuntu 6.10 until I found this error:
I'm using ubuntu server 6.10, after a fresh new install, I ran
"apt-get upgrade" and it replaced a few packages successfully, but
right after that, I am not able to use apt-get again any more.
when I am trying to install gcc or whatever, it always saids
"dpkg-deb: subprocess <decompress> killed by signal (Segmentation
fault)". I can figure out that the download is OK, and the problem
lies in the step of "dpkg-deb --control".

Does anyone have some ideas on this? thanks in advance!

root at tb:~# apt-get install vim
  Reading package lists... Done
  Building dependency tree
  Reading state information... Done
  0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
  Need to get 736kB of archives.
  After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
  Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
  Get:1 ftp://ftp3.thu.edu.cn edgy/main vim 1:7.0-035+1ubuntu5 [736kB]
  Fetched 736kB in 3s (212kB/s)
  dpkg-deb: subprocess <decompress> killed by signal (Segmentation fault)
  dpkg: error processing
/var/cache/apt/archives/vim_1%3a7.0-035+1ubuntu5_i386.deb (--unpack):
  subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
  Errors were encountered while processing:
  /var/cache/apt/archives/vim_1%3a7.0-035+1ubuntu5_i386.deb
  E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

root at tb:~# cd /var/cache/apt/archives/
root at tb:/var/cache/apt/archives# dpkg-deb --control
vim_1%3a7.0-035+1ubuntu5_i386.deb
  dpkg-deb: subprocess <decompress> killed by signal (Segmentation fault)


Yixuan, Wang.
Tsinghua University, Beijing.