When I try to install anything through apt-get or synaptic I keep on getting this output

...

Fetched 23.6 MB in 1min 10s (336 kB/s)                                         

debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable

Setting up libc6:i386 (2.15-0ubuntu10.3) ...

debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by another process: Resource temporarily unavailable

dpkg: error processing libc6:i386 (--configure):

 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libtinfo5:i386:

 libtinfo5:i386 depends on libc6 (>= 2.4); however:

  Package libc6:i386 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing libtinfo5:i386 (--configure):

 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

Errors were encountered while processing:

 libc6:i386

 libtinfo5:i386

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

What could be the problem, and how can I fix it?