cancel that - found answer, it just took ages

" -Sorry I didn't post this sooner; a kind soul on Slashdot helped me out with the same problem. The fix worked for me.

by Christopher Cashell (2517) on Monday December 09, @02:24 (#4842605)

> My current install is b0rked tho. I can't get apt-get update / upgrade to
work anymore (craps out with a memory error and can't parse some dpkg files)
so I'll have to reinstall using the latest ISO and knx-hdinstall. So much
for perfection...

Do you know offhand exactly what the error is?

Is it something about "dynamic memory map"?

If so, it's actually a semi-known error, and there's an easy fix. You see,
what the problem is, is that you have too many thing listed in /
etc/apt/sources.list, and too many packages being found. APT is attempting
to load and compile information for the whole set, and the default memory
cache size (6MB, as I recall) isn't enough to hold it all. What you need to
do is change a setting in /etc/ apt/apt.conf to make it larger, and then
life will be good.

If the error I mentioned is what you're seeing, or something similar, try
adding the following directive to /etc/apt/apt.conf:

APT {
Cache-Limit "12582915";
};

Note that what this does is double the size of the dynamic memory map that
APT uses (specified in bytes).

If it's bombing out while trying to read an APT file, it's possible you have
a corrupted packages file or something. Try clearing out the files in
/var/lib/apt/lists/ and then rerunning apt-get update.

Topher
]] "