Debian bug 644545 has been resolved in unstable (sid), finally. Debian couchdb is now in working order with package version 1.1.1-2. Thank you Laszlo!

As of 2012-03-30, the package has hit squeeze / testing. If you’re running this release, you don’t need to do anything special – just apt-get update; apt-get install couchdb

Previous pinning instructions below for posterity:

Soon it’ll be in testing, but if you can’t wait, here’s how to get couchdb working again, by pinning couchdb to sid:

1. # /etc/init.d/couchdb stop (Packages prior to 1.1.1-2 do not stop the couchdb procss before uninstalling.)

2. Create the file /etc/apt/preferences.d/couchdb with the following contents:

Package: couchdb
Pin: release a=sid
Pin-Priority: 1000

3. Create the file /etc/apt/preferences.d/release with the following contents:

Package: *
Pin: release a=wheezy
Pin-Priority: 100

Package: *
Pin: release a=sid
Pin-Priority: 1

4. Add mirrors to /etc/apt/sources.list (or add a new file in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/) for sid, e.g.:

# Mirrors for testing (wheezy)
deb http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian wheezy main non-free contrib
deb http://security.debian.org wheezy/updates main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian wheezy main non-free contrib

# Mirrors for usstable (sid)
deb http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian sid main non-free contrib
deb http://security.debian.org sid/updates main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.ca.debian.org/debian sid main non-free contrib

5. # apt-get update

6. # apt-get install couchdb

7. # apt-get autoremove (This will possibly remove any unused incorrect JS library versions installed by the previous CouchDB packages.)

8. Relax. :)

When the package reaches testing (I’ll update this post when I see it happen), to be safe: repeat step 1, remove /etc/apt/preferences.d/couchdb, optionally remove /etc/apt/preferences.d/release and the mirrors in /etc/apt/sources.list, then repeat steps 6, 7 and 8. Or, If you want to live dangerously, just revert your /etc/apt files – it SHOULD work… :)