Technical Blog of Senthil Raja


Using RPM packages in Ubuntu.
August 3, 2006, 5:18 am
Filed under: ubuntu

Often, the packages that we get from magazine CD are in rpm format.  While ubuntu is based on the debian Linux, and hence, it requires Debian package for installing. (.deb).  What can we do with those rpm packages?

Now, a tool called “alien” comes to our rescue. After this alien is installed, we can convert the rpm package in to .deb package, to be installed in linux.

The best way to install alien is from either synaptic package manager or from apt-get tool in the command line. Because, there are lot of dependancies for alien, and i faced lot of difficulties in installing it from the download.

so, using apt-get, it can be installed from the following command.

# apt-get install alien

All the dependencey problem would be taken care of by apt-get installer.

How to convert the rpm package to debian package?

To convert the rpm package to debian package,

#sudo alien -d <package.rpm>

the .deb package will be created in the current working directory.