I seem to have a similar problem with dselect/dpkg, but not with the dpkg-ftp option (haven't gotten that far yet)
The dselect package has given me problems from the first. I made a few errors in my 1st attempt at the CDRom install, but managed to get most of the selected packages unpacked & installed. Where dselect hung was on the kernel-source/kernel-headers packages. (where is local/binary ??) I have tried to remove these packages, but upon running either dselect or dpkg I get something along the lines of "Package is in an unstable/condititon please re-install before attempting to remove" As I do not clearly understand the package system yet, I'm afraid to simply delete the packages and mess up dpkg's database. I can't install the package, can't re-install the package, and dselect/dpgk won't remove it! Coming from the SlackWare Distribution, I learned how to compile & install programs using make, so there was no problem using the code to create a kernel & boot floppy, which I now use to bring up the system. There are some problems with this too, but that will wait for another time. Can anyone help?
