I also experienced this problem today. Originally I had Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on this laptop, upgraded to Edgy, then kubuntu-desktop added, then upgraded to Feisty recently.
After removing a few unnecessary applications (I honestly can't remember which at the moment sorry, mostly Gnome related though I think) via Adept, the following came up every time I ran apt-get:
I removed the /var/lib/apt/extended_states file as suggested above, and the problem seems to have gone away. I agree this is something that needs resolving though, if I had been a newbie just following on screen instructions I'd have nuked half my system!
I also experienced this problem today. Originally I had Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on this laptop, upgraded to Edgy, then kubuntu-desktop added, then upgraded to Feisty recently.
After removing a few unnecessary applications (I honestly can't remember which at the moment sorry, mostly Gnome related though I think) via Adept, the following came up every time I ran apt-get:
Reading package lists... Done card-data kruler ktux klettres python-at-spi kgoldrunner kfile-plugins kpackage kenolaba thread1. 33.1 kappfinder- data libnspr4-0d kdeartwork- theme-icon date-time1. 33.1 emoticons dcoprss ksysv kwin4 plugins libarts1-mpeglib kviewshell kgamma kfilereplace theme-window ksmiletris libarts1-audiofile python1. 33.1 kfile-plugins libarts1-xine orca-brlapi ktuberling libltdl3 kturtle kaudiocreator ktimer
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
knetwalk kpat kolf ksokoban blinken krec korn kscd krita-data kshisen kmoon
kmahjongg klaptopdaemon ksig ksim kwifimanager kcharselect python2.4-dev
kjumpingcube kdeartwork-style kdeartwork-misc kcoloredit artsbuilder kdessh
kanagram ktip libpth20 kmrml katomic libcvsservice0 kleopatra
kdegames-
kbackgammon kpoker dirmngr kdepim-
wlassistant kblackbox kdebase atlantikdesigner libmagick++9c2a
konsolekalendar klatin libkexif1 kfloppy kstars ttf-dustin ksame kbruch
kpager libkdegames1 kde-core kcalc krita keduca libboost-
kdeedu-data kdemultimedia-
kweather kmplot kalzium ksirc librss1 klinkstatus libboost-
klickety kpovmodeler ksayit kmouth kalarm noatun-plugins kworldclock
kalzium-data mpeglib kdewebdev kdegames kicker-applets amor kdict ktouch
ktnef khexedit kdeaccessibility kedit kbounce kvoctrain kdetoys
kimagemapeditor atlantik tidy libtidy-0.99-0 libexif-dev libgphoto2-2-dev
libusb-dev kwordquiz kview libdb4.3++c2 ktron ttf-sjfonts ksync cvs
kdenetwork libtiff-tools kttsd kdeartwork-
kdewallpapers kuser klettres-data kdeaddons kreversi kdf libksba8 kspaceduel
kig libjpeg62-dev gnupg-agent libxul0d juk noatun klines fifteenapplet
kdemultimedia kfaxview kstars-data edict lskat zlib1g-dev
kaddressbook-
kommander kdeutils kdegraphics kaboodle khangman gtk2-engines-gtk-qt
libindex0 libmozjs0d kdeartwork-
kxsldbg quanta kbattleship kiconedit kdeadmin kpilot kasteroids
myspell-en-za kfouleggs libmal1 libkdeedu3 libkgantt0 knewsticker ksnake
kdelibs kappfinder eyesapplet kdat indi libxul-common kdelirc kpercentage
superkaramba kjots kfax secpolicy ksirtet kmines kdvi kget pinentry-qt
mscompress libgtkglext1 kgpg konquest kate-plugins libboost-
kolourpaint libnss3-0d gpgsm gnupg2 kdeaddons-
python-
quanta-data kmid kteatime kverbos kdeartwork kodo
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
Ouch...
I removed the /var/lib/ apt/extended_ states file as suggested above, and the problem seems to have gone away. I agree this is something that needs resolving though, if I had been a newbie just following on screen instructions I'd have nuked half my system!