Download of the Day: Alien (GnuLinux)
Easily Convert RPM, Deb and tgz package formats using Alien- Portable Package Power
Alien is a program that converts between the rpm, dpkg, stampede slp, and slackware tgz file formats. If you want to use a package from another distribution than the one you have installed on your system, you can use alien to convert it to your preferred package format and install it.
Licensed under GPL, this tool converts between the rpm, Debian deb,stampede slp, and slackware tgz file formats.For example, if I want to install Inkscape which is in a binary RPM format in Ubuntu (or any other debian distro), I use the following command:
# alien -i inkscape-2.1.3.rpm
The above command will unpack the rpm package into a directory, create a deb package and then install it on your system. And to uninstall the package at a later date use the relevent dpkg command.
Note : Alien should not be used to replace important system packages, like sysvinit, shared libraries, or other things that are essential for the functioning of your system
Other things which are required :
- perl version 5.004 or greater.
- Red Hat Package Manager; get it from its website.
- If you want to convert packages into debian packages, you will need the dpkg, dpkg-dev, and debhelper packages, which are available on the Debian packages site. You'll also need gcc, and make.
Despite the large version number, alien is still (and will probably always be) rather experimental software. It has been used by many people for many years, but there are still many bugs and limitations.
Although no one officially recommends using Alien as a solution for business, I have found it to be a very effective tool.
posted on March 26th, 2007 at 9:06 pm