libxslt1-dev won't install, depends on wrong libxslt1.1

[Akkana Peck]

Binary package hint: libxslt1-dev

On a fully updated hardy 8.04.2 install, I have libxslt1.1 but I can't install libxslt1-dev:

# apt-get install libxslt1-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  libxslt1-dev: Depends: libxslt1.1 (= 1.1.22-1ubuntu1) but 1.1.22-1ubuntu1.2 is to be installed
E: Broken packages

# apt-cache policy libxslt1.1
libxslt1.1:
  Installed: 1.1.22-1ubuntu1.2
  Candidate: 1.1.22-1ubuntu1.2
  Version table:
 *** 1.1.22-1ubuntu1.2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1.1.22-1ubuntu1 0
        990 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages
# apt-cache policy libxslt1-dev
libxslt1-dev:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.1.22-1ubuntu1
  Version table:
     1.1.22-1ubuntu1.2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
     1.1.22-1ubuntu1 0
        990 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages

[Akkana Peck (akkzilla)]

Update/more info:
It looks like my libxslt1.1 was from hardy-security, and was incompatible with the libxslt1-dev. Using aptitude gave me the option of downgrading libxslt1.1, and then libxslt1-dev was happy.
A further apt-get -f dist-upgrade (or aptitude) doesn't try to re-fetch the libxslt1.1 from security.
I don't understand what happened, but somehow that security package confused things (and I have to wonder, am I now running a less secure version of libxslt?)

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

Akk,
What's going on is that while libxslt1-dev version 1.1.22-1ubuntu1.2 to match your installed binary package is available in hardy-security, your computer's ignoring it. It's ignoring it because your priority on main is set to 990, making it automatically prefer the not-security-patched versions ahead of the patched versions (see man 5 apt_preferences).

Ubuntu defaults to 500 for everything so that version number rules. Do you have an apt preferences file somewhere that's interfering?

[Akkana Peck (akkzilla)]

This is what was causing the problem, in /etc/apt/apt.conf:
APT::Default-Release "hardy";

I put that in so I wouldn't accidentally get packages from hardy-backports except when I explicitly asked for them, but I guess it was also blocking hardy-security, which was definitely not the intent.

So this was my error, not a packaging bug; Mackenzie helped me set up pinning so I could set priorities for hardy-security and hardy-updates as well as hardy. Thanks!