Comment 24 for bug 134858

I've also got this bug, it's ubuntu gutsy on AMD64 (but I've seen this on an i386 box too at my workplace, with the same version numbers), version of apt package is 0.7.6ubuntu12, version of dpkg is 1.14.5ubuntu16. From time to time using "apt-get" causes to "freeze", I can see process "dpkg" in defunct state with command ps. It seems it's just after unpacking packages, since killing apt-get than running "dpkg --configure -a" does the trick (eg furthet "apt-get dist-upgrade" does not find any more task to do).

Also (don't it's related or not) I've discovered that I can't stop apt-get with CTRL-Z even before the freeze however I've used this to stop installing packages for a while if I need more disk I/O bandwidth for an urgent task or such (I've got very slow disk ....).