I'm running an Intel ARM embedded system. The package management files reside on my x86 host machine. On the embedded system I'm mounted the package management files over NFS to the host. I have symbolic links setup so DPKG can find the package management files. I have dselect add my selected packages. DPKG then hangs on "Reading package lists... 0%" for 5 to 10 minutes. The files through the percents to reporting "Reading package lists... Done". DPKG then does the same hang "Building dependency tree..." for 5 to 10 minutes then races to 100% and reports done.

The packages get installed correctly, but there is such a huge lag problem. The package database I have on the host for the Arm board is a very small subset and should only take a second or two to read the package list. I use "ps -aux" to see whats going on everything is just sitting idle.

I don't know much about this kind of stuff but could it be a NFS problem? A file locking problem? It seems like it could even be a time out problem, but I don't know why it just starts working after 5 to 10 minutes.

I'm looking for any help, I'm pretty much dead in the water. I've tried everything I could think of to figure this one out.