talking archlinux

[Kyle]

/It shouldn't make a difference, because you should *always* get the 
latest packages from pacstrap, but try

pacman -Syyu

before you run pacstrap for the first time. You will get warnings about 
the database not being found, but the above command will load it into 
ram if you are installing from the live image. If you are using an 
existing installation to install to a new system, you won't get the 
warnings,but your system will start up-to-date and will be able to find 
all the necessary packages. It almost seems that the name of a package 
has changed, which would cause the problem you mention if the database 
is not reloaded. Having said this, I could be completely wrong, since 
when I did my install to a flash drive, I didn't have your problem. Hope 
this helps.
~Kyle
/