Why does "tasksel" give an "aptitude failed" error?

This is a long outstanding bug.

sudo apt-get update

then

sudo tasksel install lamp-server

Oh and if this ever happens when you (re)install MySQL itself make sure to remove /var/lib/mysql.

edit: Found it on Launchpad from a report in 2007.

Nowadays you can also do

sudo apt-get install lamp-server^

The ^ is the equivalent of task select.

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