Ah, I missed the GUI bit.
The 'easy' way to get around this is to use ipkg from the command line.
i reported this as a bug a long time ago in the OE bugtracker...
Yep, these issues (with the gpe and opie versions) have been ongoing for a long time. The problem is that no-one has yet decided to fix/write a new GUI package manager. If there's anyone out there who fancies the task, then I'm sure you'll get a lot of kudos.
Si