Problem with Ubuntu 11.04 when installing packages

If you are seeing something like this when installing / updating software:

Setting up tzdata (2011g-0ubuntu0.11.04) ...
Use of uninitialized value $reply in scalar chomp at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 66.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 67.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in split at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 68.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in scalar chomp at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 66.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 67.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in split at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 68.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in scalar chomp at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 66.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 67.
Use of uninitialized value $reply in split at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 68.
Use of uninitialized value $ret in string eq at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Passthrough.pm line 109.
dpkg: error processing tzdata (--configure):

There is a solution that I did to fix this is to run this command in the command prompt:

 sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

then follow the instructions to set the time zone. For some reason the Los Angeles timezone did not work out for me so I had to set it to the New York timezone. Then retry to to install the package and voila!