[SOLVED] dependency problems prevent configuration of libc6-dev

I recently descended into endlessly broken apt and dpkg hell. Usually this is enough to get out of the woods:

sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get -f install

but not this time. I also tried cleaning out the cache and re-downloading the packages, but no dice. Until this is fixed you can't install or remove any other packages. Here's a few things I tried and the errors I was getting:

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libc6-dev:
 libc6-dev depends on libc6 (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2); however:
  Version of libc6 on system is 2.15-0ubuntu10.3.
 libc6-dev depends on libc-dev-bin (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2); however:
  Version of libc-dev-bin on system is 2.15-0ubuntu10.3.
dpkg: error processing libc6-dev (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libc6-dev

$ sudo dpkg -r libc6-dev
dpkg: dependency problems prevent removal of libc6-dev:
 libgnutls-dev depends on libc6-dev | libc-dev; however:
  Package libc6-dev is to be removed.
  Package libc-dev is not installed.
  Package libc6-dev which provides libc-dev is to be removed.

 [snip]

 libgcrypt11-dev depends on libc6-dev | libc-dev; however:
  Package libc6-dev is to be removed.
  Package libc-dev is not installed.
  Package libc6-dev which provides libc-dev is to be removed.
dpkg: error processing libc6-dev (--remove):
 dependency problems - not removing
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libc6-dev

$ sudo apt-get remove libc-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'libc6-dev' instead of 'libc-dev'
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libc6-dev : Depends: libc6 (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.3 is to be installed
             Depends: libc-dev-bin (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.3 is to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

$ sudo apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libutouch-grail1 libutouch-evemu1 libutouch-frame1 libutouch-geis1
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libc6-dev
Suggested packages:
  glibc-doc
The following packages will be upgraded:
  libc6-dev
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 156 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/5,100 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2,048 B disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? 
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libc6-dev:
 libc6-dev depends on libc6 (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2); however:
  Version of libc6 on system is 2.15-0ubuntu10.3.
 libc6-dev depends on libc-dev-bin (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.2); however:
  Version of libc-dev-bin on system is 2.15-0ubuntu10.3.
dpkg: error processing libc6-dev (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
                                                                                                          Errors were encountered while processing:
 libc6-dev
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The solution was to put the offending package on hold (run as root):

# echo "libc6-dev hold" | dpkg --set-selections

then run:

# apt-get -f install

which removed a bunch of packages, including the offending broken one. I could then apt-get update and upgrade as normal. Hooray!