apt-get: How to overwrite existing files from another package?

Solution 1:

Try running:

sudo dpkg --purge gnome-games gnome-games-common gnome-games-extra-data

to remove the offending packages. If the packages refuse to be removed, you can run:

sudo dpkg --force-overwrite --purge gnome-games gnome-games-common gnome-games-extra-data

Then clear the apt cache and reinstall them:

sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get install gnome-games gnome-games-common gnome-games-extra-data

Solution 2:

You should try removing gnome-games-extra-data, not gnome-games-common. I tried installing gnome-games-extra-data and then updating Gnome from ppa and had no error. Doing it in reversed order does anger apt.

Solution 3:

What I did was remove each game by name as suggested above. It gave me more errors, but listed other apps and games that had the dependency problem. I removed those as well, then sudo apt-get update, and it automatically asked me to install the gnome-games-common. From there, everything seems to be working fine.