How to Rearrange Your Package
Posted by Nessa | Posted in linux,ubuntu | Posted on December 20, 2007
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For some odd reason, Ubuntu and other Debian-based distros don’t like the standard x86 RPMs that most vendors package their software in. If you want to install a third-party RPM, you have to use alien to repackage the RPM into a .deb file before you can install it:
sudo apt-get install alien
alien -k your-rpm-file.rpm
This will convert the RPM to a .deb file. From here you can use dpkg to install it:
sudo dpkg -i your-rpm-file.deb
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I usually rearrange my package while crossing and uncrossing my legs…..no one ever seems to notice.
That’s because RPM stands for “Red Hat Package Manager”.
A quick look at a Linux Distro Timeline (http://futurist.se/gldt/ldt75.png) shows that Debian and Red Hat form separate major branches. Also, Debian predates Red Hat somewhat.
True, but RPM’s (esp. ones labeled as generic) are no longer just targeted to Redhat systems anymore…you can find them for just about any major Linux distribution nowadays…except for Debian it seems like.
I’m not sure why you’d want to install RPM’s, the whole idea of the system is just a lame attempt in bringing Windows’ worst feature over to Linux: the registry.
Besides that, RPM-based distros are USUALLY structured in a very similar manner to standard RedHat, because they’re based on redhat (though some variations do occur, and that’s why there are distro-specific RPM’s), and they’re not “put together” the same as a Debian-based, Slackware-based, or Gentoo-based distro.
The reason the packages have to be ‘rearranged’ is twofold: 1, because RPM itself is structured completely differently from a debpkg, genpkg, or tgz, and 2, because the root distros themselves tend to be structured in subtly (and sometimes less-than-subtly) different ways.
@jkndrkn: I’m not sure that timeline is technically correct, as it shows SuSE branching off of Slackware… though SuSE is clearly an RPM-based distro. At least, it is now.
I usually prefer RPM’s over compiling, simply for the fact of ease. I don’t think RPM’s are anything like the Windows registry…they are just a method of installing and managing software to be easily removed and upgraded as needed. One thing I hate about compiling shit is that the ‘make uninstall’ command isn’t always there, and I don’t always remember how or where I installed something.
It’s not RPMs themselves are like the Windows registry, it’s the RPM database that tries to act in a similar fashion.
debpackages are nice, as are gentoo portage packages. They just handle things like dependencies a lot better than RPM does.
I have never been a fan of RPM distros. Debian was my flavor of choice for a few years until I discovered Gentoo. Gentoo was bliss in the way it handled things, just took soooo damn long to get X compiled. Though I guess that was the reason for DistCC
ohh and yeah I never was a fan of Alien, as jkndrkn said RPM’s are for Red hat systems, installing them on machines that are running Debian, Gentoo Etc can have odd effects. When there is only and RPM available then I think it is best to compile from source, atleast that way you know that its installing stuff in the correct spots.