Comment 2 for bug 339100

I ran into a similar problem while doing an ordinary system update (Jaunty development branch): during the update some problems were reported concerning python, and on reboot the system was almost unusable; the update had apparently been aborted due to python not being available, so the window manager wouldn't start, among other things. When I had reconfigured X manually, Gnome would just hang. The worst thing: even "dpgk --configure -a" wouldn't work, running into an infinite loop. Only by removing package
 libboost-python1.35-dev 1.35.0-8ubuntu4 1.35.0-8ubuntu4 was I able to fix the mess.

I'm absolutely chocked by the fact that a single dependency problem in a fairly unimportant module can have such dire consequences. What could I have done had I been less experienced with the command line - I think I would have had to reinstall from scratch.

I'm attaching the log from the failed install and the recovery.