Are you referring to "mercurial-common"? Because I found a package by that name, but was unable to find a "mercurial-commons".
I did manage to install mercurial-common. There was no mention of a package called "sprosslnk" when I installed it, and I was unable to find such a package in my searches of the repositories.
I don't know if it will help, but here is a transcript of how the installation went on my machine. I am using Lenny.
Code:
debian:/home/mark# aptitude install mercurial-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
mercurial{a} mercurial-common python-beaker{a} python-sqlalchemy{a} rcs{a}
0 packages upgraded, 5 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/1264kB of archives. After unpacking 5353kB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] y
Writing extended state information... Done
Media Change: Please insert the disc labeled 'Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.0 _Lenny_ - Official i386 DVD Binary-1 20090214-16:54' in the drive '/cdrom/' and press [Enter].
Selecting previously deselected package mercurial-common.
(Reading database ... 131567 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mercurial-common (from .../mercurial-common_1.0.1-5.1_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package mercurial.
Unpacking mercurial (from .../mercurial_1.0.1-5.1_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package python-sqlalchemy.
Unpacking python-sqlalchemy (from .../python-sqlalchemy_0.4.7p1-2_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package rcs.
Unpacking rcs (from .../main/r/rcs/rcs_5.7-23_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Media Change: Please insert the disc labeled 'Debian GNU/Linux 5.0.0 _Lenny_ - Official i386 DVD Binary-2 20090214-16:54' in the drive '/cdrom/' and press [Enter].
Selecting previously deselected package python-beaker.
(Reading database ... 131953 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking python-beaker (from .../python-beaker_0.9.5-1_all.deb) ...
Setting up python-beaker (0.9.5-1) ...
Setting up mercurial-common (1.0.1-5.1) ...
Setting up mercurial (1.0.1-5.1) ...
Enabling hgk extension
Disabling highlight extension (package 'python-pygments' is not installed)
Enabling inotify extension
Creating config file /etc/mercurial/hgrc.d/hgext.rc with new version
Setting up python-sqlalchemy (0.4.7p1-2) ...
Setting up rcs (5.7-23) ...
Processing triggers for python-support ...
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Writing extended state information... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
Below is a record of the searches I did for sprosslnk. Neither as a named package (aptitude search), nor even as a package mentioned in descriptions, turned up. I also searched simply for "spross", and nothing turned up for this either.
Code:
debian:/home/mark# aptitude search sprosslnk
debian:/home/mark#
debian:/home/mark# aptitude search spross
debian:/home/mark#
debian:/home/mark# apt-cache search sprosslnk
debian:/home/mark#
debian:/home/mark# apt-cache search spross
debian:/home/mark#