Thanks for the reply. Well, I couldnt find a file at /etc/apt/apt.conf. So I created one with the line as given.
APT::Cache-Limit "42123456";
There was a file "/etc/apt/apt.conf.d/70debconf" so I added the line there as well. Unfortunatly, this did not stop the error. So, I went to /var/lib/dpkg/ and renamed "status-2" to "status". This sorted out the prob for a while. I could run "apt-get update" without any probs. So, I ran "apt-get -f install" a few times (kept getting an error from "xfonts-scalable"). Now, its gone back to /var/lib/dpkg/status, and i get this out put:
#apt-get -f install
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
gcc-3.3-base libc6 libc6-dev libdb1-compat libgcc1 libstdc++5
linux-kernel-headers locales x-window-system-core xfonts-scalable
xlibmesa3-gl xlibmesa3-glu
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libnss-db xlibmesa3
The following NEW packages will be installed:
gcc-3.3-base libdb1-compat libstdc++5 linux-kernel-headers xfonts-scalable
xlibmesa3-gl xlibmesa3-glu
5 packages upgraded, 7 newly installed, 2 to remove and 1019 not upgraded.
1 packages not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/18.5MB of archives. After unpacking 12.1MB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
Preconfiguring packages ...
dpkg: parse error, in file `/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 28404 package `xfonts-scalable':
missing version
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
btw, I am using Debian 3.2r2 Woody non-US + some packages from testing, on a PII 400 Mhz, 370 MB mem.
is this due to an error in the xfonts package, or can I fix it?
dav