seems to be bug #3037
Worked for the user without me having to change any of the user settings in server-manager
Go to software installer
enable "sme server updates testing" repositories
enable individual package thingy
install e-smith-base
Now undo the repository changes.
If I knew yum, I'm sure a command line would have been much simpler.
like apt-get -t unstable install e-smith-base.

Should I assume, had I simply waited, this would have come to the stable tree rather than the unstable (testing) tree?