error installing synaptic

noob with Knoppix 3.4 here...
First I did a apt-get update whic appers to have been successful. Then I tried to install synaptic and this is what happened...

root@LinuxBox:/# apt-get install synaptic
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
docbook-xml libscrollkeeper0 libzvt2.0-0 scrollkeeper sgml-data
Suggested packages:
docbook docbook-doc docbook-dsssl docbook-xsl perlsgml doc-html-w3 opensp
libgnome2-perl apt-watch
The following NEW packages will be installed:
docbook-xml libscrollkeeper0 libzvt2.0-0 scrollkeeper sgml-data synaptic
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 0 to remove and 376 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/2093kB of archives.
After unpacking 9083kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
dpkg-deb: subprocess tar killed by signal (Bus error)
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/sgml-data_2.0.2_all.deb (--unpack):
subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb: subprocess tar killed by signal (Bus error)
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/docbook-xml_4.3-1_all.deb (--unpack):
subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb: subprocess tar killed by signal (Bus error)
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libscrollkeeper0_0.3.14-8_i386.deb (--unpack):
subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb: subprocess tar killed by signal (Bus error)
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libzvt2.0-0_2.0.1cvs20021009-4_i386.deb (--unpack):
subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb: subprocess tar killed by signal (Bus error)
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/scrollkeeper_0.3.14-8_i386.deb (--unpack):
subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
dpkg-deb: subprocess tar killed by signal (Bus error)
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/synaptic_0.48.2-4_i386.deb (--unpack):
subprocess dpkg-deb --control returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/sgml-data_2.0.2_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/docbook-xml_4.3-1_all.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libscrollkeeper0_0.3.14-8_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libzvt2.0-0_2.0.1cvs20021009-4_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/scrollkeeper_0.3.14-8_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/synaptic_0.48.2-4_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

What's wrong and how do I fix?