Спасибо equivs…

Благодаря datacompboy у меня заработало. Идея была простая: подсунуть фэйковые пакеты запредельных версий, чтобы ничто по этому поводу не парилось.

[stanis@harmony Work/e] % sudo dpkg -i libpulse0_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb pulseaudio_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb pulseaudio-esound-compat_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb pulseaudio-module-hal_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb pulseaudio-module-x11_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb
(Reading database … 297808 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace libpulse0 1:0.9.14-0ubuntu20.1 (using libpulse0_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb) …
Unpacking replacement libpulse0 …
dpkg: warning – unable to delete old directory `/etc/pulse’: Directory not empty
Selecting previously deselected package pulseaudio.
Unpacking pulseaudio (from pulseaudio_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb) …
Selecting previously deselected package pulseaudio-esound-compat.
Unpacking pulseaudio-esound-compat (from pulseaudio-esound-compat_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb) …
Selecting previously deselected package pulseaudio-module-hal.
Unpacking pulseaudio-module-hal (from pulseaudio-module-hal_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb) …
Selecting previously deselected package pulseaudio-module-x11.
Unpacking pulseaudio-module-x11 (from pulseaudio-module-x11_9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1_all.deb) …
Setting up libpulse0 (1:9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1) …
Setting up pulseaudio (1:9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1) …
Setting up pulseaudio-esound-compat (1:9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1) …
Setting up pulseaudio-module-hal (1:9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1) …
Setting up pulseaudio-module-x11 (1:9.99.99-0ubuntu20.1) …
[stanis@harmony Work/e] % sudo aptitude install ubuntu-desktop [0:45:19]
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states… Done
Writing extended state information… Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
ubuntu-desktop
The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
gnome-orca pulseaudio-module-gconf
0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/29.1kB of archives. After unpacking 57.3kB will be used.
Writing extended state information… Done
Selecting previously deselected package ubuntu-desktop.
(Reading database … 297819 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking ubuntu-desktop (from …/ubuntu-desktop_1.140_i386.deb) …
Setting up ubuntu-desktop (1.140) …
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states… Done
Writing extended state information… Done