package openssh-server (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: subprocess new pre-installation script killed by signal (Aborted)

Hi Randall, thank you for reporting this bug and working with us to make Ubuntu better!

I notice these lines in the Dmesg.txt:

[ 1.890131] EXT3-fs: INFO: recovery required on readonly filesystem.
[ 1.890137] EXT3-fs: write access will be enabled during recovery.
[ 3.777970] kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds
[ 3.777997] EXT3-fs: sda5: orphan cleanup on readonly fs
[ 3.778009] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 431687
[ 3.787929] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 782324
[ 3.787953] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 782320
[ 3.792731] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 782315
[ 3.792747] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 782311
[ 3.792762] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 782307
[ 3.792776] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 782305
[ 3.798283] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 782294
[ 3.804154] ext3_orphan_cleanup: deleting unreferenced inode 757417
[ 3.807915] EXT3-fs: sda5: 9 orphan inodes deleted
[ 3.807919] EXT3-fs: recovery complete.
[ 3.820009] EXT3-fs: mounted filesystem with ordered data mode.

Is it possible that you had a hard system crash that may have corrupted sda5? According to the attached Df.txt, that is your root drive and has all of the binaries on the system. Given that you had a very abnormal error from perl, I'd suspect that there may be an issue with your disk being corrupted.

Make sure you backup your data immediately! And then try

' sudo apt-get -f install' to re-attempt the configuration of the system that caused the error. If it succeeds, then this may be a false alarm, though I would still be suspicious of system integrity. If you see the error again, then I would recommend reinstalling the system without deleting or formatting the filesystems (after backing everything up!).

Marking Incomplete pending information from Randall. Marking High as this would be a very serious problem if it turns out to be an issue with perl.

Confirm that this workstation appears to have file-system problems.
We wont submit further reports from the bug-reporting tool until after
fsck, reinstall, and/or hardware replacement.
I'm going to look at [617612] which likely had same cause.
Anyhow, for a bit of technical detail, openssh-server showed as already
successfully installed, but we got read errors trying to install another:

$ sudo aptitude install kdelibs5
[...]
Unpacking kdelibs5 (from .../kdelibs5_4%3a4.4.2-0ubuntu4_i386.deb) ...
lzma: Decoder error
dpkg-deb: subprocess <decompress> returned error exit status 1
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/kdelibs5_4%
3a4.4.2-0ubuntu4_i386.deb (--unpack):
 short read in buffer_copy (backend dpkg-deb during
`./usr/lib/libkio.so.5.4.0')
No apport report written because the error message indicates a dpkg I/O
error
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/kdelibs5_4%3a4.4.2-0ubuntu4_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
[...]

Marking as Invalid since OP confirms the system is having disk issues.