There is usually some orphan packages left on the system after upgrading Ubuntu from one major version to another. These packages can cause strange errors like Ubuntu bug #151045. The solution to this problem is a package named deborphan. deborphan removes orphan packages that are left on your Ubuntu installation and you should run this program after any major Ubuntu upgrade.
Install and run deborphan
# sudo aptitude install deborphan # sudo deborphan
Result
liblzo1 libdb4.3 libsasl2
These files were listed on one of my Ubuntu 8.04 installations. This installation had been upgraded from a previous LTS version.
All we have to do now is to remove those orphaned packages
# sudo deborphan | xargs sudo aptitude purge -y
This howto has not been tested on a Debian distribution, but I guess it will work there also.