Debian's PostgreSQL packages allow installation of several server versions in parallel, but only one libpq and libpq-dev package is provided, i.e. libpq is always from the latest stable branch. There are separate postgresql-server-dev-NN packages for the version-specific header files. So far, postgresql-server-dev-NN does not contain any libraries.
In the context of Michael Banck's pg_checksums program [*], we ran into the problem that libpqport.a is not compatible across server versions. Currently it is installed into LIBDIR (= /usr/lib/<arch-triplet>). It would need to be in PKGLIBDIR (= /usr/lib/postgresql/NN/lib) to allow co-installation of several versions. (This is actually the first time we try to package client programs that are server-version-dependant; pg-filedump works on all server versions no matter what version it is linked against.) I'm contemplating moving these static libs to PKGLIBDIR. Or should libfeutils.a better stay in LIBDIR, with only one version? Maybe they should be moved in "stock" PostgreSQL as well? Christoph [*] I haven't checked, but this likely applies to Michael Paquier's version of it as well