This has been consistent over a period of time, tho' I am not sure how long.
(Days not weeks).
But ping by IP is fine:
--------------------------------------------------------
lisi@Tux-II:~$ ping 212.211.132.32
PING 212.211.132.32 (212.211.132.32) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 212.211.132.32: icmp_req=1 ttl=56 time=58.4 ms
64 bytes from 212.211.132.32: icmp_req=2 ttl=56 time=58.4 ms
64 bytes from 212.211.132.32: icmp_req=3 ttl=56 time=59.5 ms
64 bytes from 212.211.132.32: icmp_req=4 ttl=56 time=58.9 ms
64 bytes from 212.211.132.32: icmp_req=5 ttl=56 time=58.2 ms
64 bytes from 212.211.132.32: icmp_req=6 ttl=56 time=58.4 ms
^C
--- 212.211.132.32 ping statistics ---
6 packets transmitted, 6 received, 0% packet loss, time 5006ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 58.278/58.689/59.552/0.501 ms
lisi@Tux-II:~$
-------------------------------------------------
However:
lisi@Tux-II:~$ ping http://security.debian.org/squeeze/updates ping: unknown host http://security.debian.org/squeeze/updates lisi@Tux-II:~$ ping http://security.debian.org/squeeze/ ping: unknown host http://security.debian.org/squeeze/ lisi@Tux-II:~$
------------------------------------------------------
On the face of it, a straight-forward dns problem, but I have the problem with
absolutely nothing elsethat I know of, and it is the result of aptitude's
activities that gives me the IP in the first place.