Replacing svgalib1 with svgalib-dummy1

[Riku Saikkonen <rjs@lloke.dna.fi>]

How do I replace an installed svgalib1 with svgalib-dummy1?

Running "dpkg -i svgalib-dummy1_1.2.10.deb" says this:
dpkg: regarding svgalib-dummy1_1.2.10.deb containing svgalib-dummy1:
 svgalib-dummy1 conflicts with svgalib1
  svgalib1 (version 1:1.2.10-4) is installed.
dpkg: error processing svgalib-dummy1_1.2.10.deb (--install):
 conflicting packages - not installing svgalib-dummy1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 svgalib-dummy1_1.2.10.deb

And "dpkg --purge svgalib1" complains about a few packages (like gs) that
depend on svgalib1...

Would:
  dpkg --force-depends --purge svgalib1
  dpkg --install svgalib-dummy1_1.2.10.deb
be the right thing to do?

(How safe is --force-depends, anyway? Can I safely use it if I check the
Depends: lines of the packages manually and see that I have the programs I
need?)

(I'm in the process of upgrading (via running dpkg -iEG manually on the new
packages) from 1.2.9 to the newest frozen. I have dpkg 1.4.0.8 already
installed.)

--
-=- Rjs -=- rjs@spider.compart.fi, rjs@lloke.dna.fi