Problem solved. I opened 'Software & Updates', went to the 'Updates' tab, and checked 'Recommended updates (xenial-updates)'. After that, and a 'sudo apt-get update', I was able to install libpulse-dev successfully (and ultimately build qsstv).

I'm a little puzzled as to why 'Recommended updates' wouldn't be checked by default when I installed WattOS, given that they're, um, recommended. But it looks like I'm all set now.

I've just installed WattOS R10 on an old ThinkPad, and am definitely liking how snappy it is. However, I'm unable to install libpulse-dev.

When I first try:

$ sudo apt-get install libpulse-dev
[…]
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libpulse-dev : Depends: libglib2.0-dev but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

To get more detail, I then try:

$ sudo apt-get install libglib2.0-dev
[…]
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libglib2.0-dev : Depends: libglib2.0-0 (= 2.48.0-1ubuntu4) but 2.48.1-1~ubuntu16.04.1 is to be installed
                  Depends: libglib2.0-bin (= 2.48.0-1ubuntu4) but 2.48.1-1~ubuntu16.04.1 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Puzzled, I do this:

$ dpkg -l | grep libglib2
ii  libglib2.0-0:i386                          2.48.1-1~ubuntu16.04.1                     i386         GLib library of C routines
ii  libglib2.0-bin                             2.48.1-1~ubuntu16.04.1                     i386         Programs for the GLib library
ii  libglib2.0-data                            2.48.1-1~ubuntu16.04.1                     all          Common files for GLib library

and also look the guilty packages up at https://packages.ubuntu.com/. Sure enough, R10 has newer versions installed than those that are part of xenial / 16.04LTS (but older than xenial-updates).

Before someone suggests it, doing the whole update / upgrade thing:

$ sudo apt-get clean
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

makes no difference whatsoever. I get the exact same errors after as before.

I'm a relative newcomer to package version mismatch resolution in Linux land, but I don't see how I can resolve the conflict. Given the huge list of other packages that depend on the ones that are causing the problem here, I don't really want to be futzing with those by attempting to downgrade.

I need libpulse-dev because it's a dependency of qsstv, which I'm trying to build from source. I've tried this on an LXLE install, also based on 16.04LTS, and it works without a hitch.

Any thoughts?