Here's some more error messages, they only occur sometimes during installation of another program. Setting up slime (20051207-1) ... emacsen-common: Handling install of emacsen flavor emacs emacsen-common: Handling install of emacsen flavor emacs21 emacsen-common: byte-compiling for emacs21 Loading 00debian-vars (source)... Loading 50a2ps (source)... Loading a2ps-print... Loading 50dictionaries-common (source)... Loading debian-ispell... Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-default.el (source)... Loading /var/cache/dictionaries-common/emacsen-ispell-dicts.el (source)... Loading 50slime (source)... Wrote /etc/emacs21/site-start.d/00debian-vars.elc Wrote /usr/share/emacs21/site-lisp/debian-startup.elc Done install/slime: Handling install for emacsen flavor emacs21 cp: `bridge.el' and `/usr/share/emacs21/site-lisp/slime/bridge.el' are the same file cp: `hyperspec.el' and `/usr/share/emacs21/site-lisp/slime/hyperspec.el' are the same file cp: `slime.el' and `/usr/share/emacs21/site-lisp/slime/slime.el' are the same file cp: `tree-widget.el' and `/usr/share/emacs21/site-lisp/slime/tree-widget.el' are the same file emacs-package-install: /usr/lib/emacsen-common/packages/install/slime emacs21 emacs21 failed at /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-package-install line 30, <TSORT> line 2. dpkg: error processing slime (--configure): subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1