I was using a thumbdrive freshly created with unetbootin with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS and a 2GB persistent partition on a VAIO VPCEB42FM laptop to copy failed hard drive to replacement hard drive. During this critical recovery operation, system was unresponsive and I discovered that dpkg was running a command to install upgrades for more packages than would fit on one screen without line breaks. It was invoked by unattended-upgrade. I would not have given unattended-upgrade permission to install upgrades on a hard-drive, let alone on a usb thumb drive.
killed using killall before reporting bug. Relavent portions of ps output pasted below from terminal buffer:
4 0 3830 30239 20 0 73660 44404 - Ss+ pts/2 0:09 /usr/bin/dpkg --status-fd 10 --unpack --auto-deconfigure /var/cache/apt/archives/libpython3.5_3.5.2-2ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libssl1.0.0_1.0.2g-1ubuntu4.5_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/python3.5_3.5.2-2ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libpython3.5-stdlib_3.5.2-2ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/python3.5-minimal_3.5.2-2ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libpython3.5-minimal_3.5.2-2ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libfontconfig1_2.11.94-0ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/fontconfig-config_2.11.94-0ubuntu1.1_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/fontconfig_2.11.94-0ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libxml2_2.9.3+dfsg1-1ubuntu0.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libmagickwand-6.q16-2_8%3a6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.3_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libmagickcore-6.q16-2_8%3a6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.3_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/imagemagick-common_8%3a6.8.9.9-7ubuntu5.3_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-ogltrans_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/ure_5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/uno-libs3_5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-calc_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-impress_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-draw_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-gnome_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-gtk_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/python3-uno_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-style-galaxy_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-style-breeze_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-common_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-pdfimport_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-math_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-base-core_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-avmedia-backend-gstreamer_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-writer_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libreoffice-core_1%3a5.1.4-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0_2.32.2-1ubuntu1.2_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common_2.32.2-1ubuntu1.2_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/fonts-opensymbol_2%3a102.7+LibO5.1.4-0ubuntu1_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-0_1.8.2-1ubuntu0.2_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/curl_7.47.0-1ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libidn11_1.32-3ubuntu1.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libcurl3-gnutls_7.47.0-1ubuntu2.2_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libharfbuzz0b_1.0.1-1ubuntu0.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libharfbuzz-icu0_1.0.1-1ubuntu0.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libnspr4_2%3a4.12-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libnss3-1d_2%3a3.26.2-0ubuntu0.16.04.2_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libnss3-nssdb_2%3a3.26.2-0ubuntu0.16.04.2_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libnss3_2%3a3.26.2-0ubuntu0.16.04.2_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/python2.7_2.7.12-1ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libpython2.7_2.7.12-1ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libpython2.7-stdlib_2.7.12-1ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/python2.7-minimal_2.7.12-1ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libpython2.7-minimal_2.7.12-1ubuntu0~16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libtevent0_0.9.28-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/python-samba_2%3a4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.3_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/samba-common-bin_2%3a4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.3_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libsmbclient_2%3a4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.3_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/samba-libs_2%3a4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.3_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libwbclient0_2%3a4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.3_amd64.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/samba-common_2%3a4.3.11+dfsg-0ubuntu0.16.04.3_all.deb /var/cache/apt/archives/libgcrypt20_1.6.5-2ubuntu0.2_amd64.deb
5 0 30239 30200 20 0 146400 63792 - S ? 0:01 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
4 0 29961 1 20 0 4508 1740 - Ss ? 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/lib/apt/apt.systemd.daily
4 0 30200 29961 20 0 145736 72336 - S ? 5:19 /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/unattended-upgrade
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: unattended-upgrades 0.90
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-21.37-generic 4.4.6
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-21-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: amd64
CasperVersion: 1.376
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Sun Jan 15 15:51:27 2017
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
TERM=xterm-256color
PATH=(custom, no user)
XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: unattended-upgrades
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
Were the drive to have been created with startup disk creator, provided in the Ubuntu repositories, you would not have encountered this error. For more information see bug 1619188.