Package dependency issues

[Paul McAvoy <paulmcav@auctomation.com>]

I submitted this question a while ago, and didn't get much of a response.
Here goes agai:

I am having a problem in that I am using qmail on my system,  and the apt/dpkg
system does not recognize that it fills the dependency of a
mail-transport-agent. So, by default everytime I want to install something
like a mail reader (mutt) I get a requirement that I need exim or something to
be installed.  I am unable to purge exim without breaking a bunch of
dependencies.

does anyone know how I can tell apt/dpkg that my own version of qmail will
fulfill the mail-transport-agent package requirement, or else just ignore the
mail-transport-agent requirement all together?

If anyone has any clues, or knows where I can find the information, I would
really appreciate it.

Thanks!

- Paul