apt-get error

hi, more weirdness for my nfs intimate install: apt-get seems to not work
correctly. so, i try to install the cube, byt get a 'cannot scan
updates dir' error. for example:

--
intimate:/dev# apt-get install wmcube
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  wmcube
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 33  not upgraded.
Need to get 29.1kB of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Get:1 http://intimate.handhelds.org unstable/main wmcube 0.98-2 [29.1kB]
Fetched 29.1kB in 0s (30.0kB/s)
dpkg: cannot scan updates directory `/var/lib/dpkg/updates/': Value too
large fo
r defined data type
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
--
now, i thought, ok, do i not have perms for that dir?
intimate:/dev# ls -l /var/lib/dpkg/ |grep update
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            9 Jun 22  2001 updates
ok. is there stuff in that directory? nope:
intimate:/dev# ls -al /var/lib/dpkg/updates/
total 4
drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root            9 Jun 22  2001 .
drwxr-xr-x    6 root     root         4096 Jun 22  2001 ..
vat is it? i don't know...
mo help! thanks,
bob
|      bob kuehne       |  "there was coffee. life would go on."  |
|      rpk_at_who.net      |   - william gibson, the winter market   |