How to force-overwrite virtually anything.

Getting into one of these situations is not uncommon. Sometimes packages aren't packaged properly and you end up with a broken package which refuses to fix itself.

If you try:

sudo apt-get -f install

You will get a message like this:

Unpacking replacement vlc …
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/vlc_1.1.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb (–unpack):
trying to overwrite ‘/usr/lib/vlc/plugins/access/libxcb_screen_plugin.so’, which is also in package vlc-nox 1.1.0-1~ppa1~maverick
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Preparing to replace vlc-nox 1.1.0-1~ppa1~maverick (using …/vlc-nox_1.1.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb) …
Unpacking replacement vlc-nox …
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/vlc-nox_1.1.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb (–unpack):
trying to overwrite ‘/usr/lib/vlc/lua/playlist/anevia_streams.luac’, which is also in package vlc 1.1.0-1~ppa1~maverick
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/vlc_1.1.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/vlc-nox_1.1.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

For reasons why this happens see point 7.6.1 from the debian policy manual

The fix for the problem is pretty easy if you know what to do:

sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite <filename>

eg. sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite /var/cache/apt/archives/vlc-nox_1.1.0-1ubuntu1_i386.deb

THANKS www.absolutelytech.com