rpm instead of apt-get

[A. Jorge Garcia]

I'm used to installing apps to my hdinstalled PCs using apt-get. What do you do when what you need to install only comes as an rpm? I'm trying to install Object Based Phoenix BASIC (a vb clone for linux) from http://www.janus-software.com but phoenix is distributed only as rpms.

TIA,
AJG

[champagnemojo]

You can use alien to convert the rpm into a deb.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

OK, I tried alien, but I must be doing something wrong. In a shell I ran alien blah.phoenix.blah.rpm and just sat there forever without anything happening....

TIA,
AJG

[fingers99]

It should work, but what's with the blah?

From memory (and after half a bottle of lambrusco):

alien name_of_package.rpm

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Sorry, that's what I menat by blahlah... = whateverthenameof the appis....

Is alien slow if the rpm is a few MBs? I think there are 2 rpms for this package to work. One is almost 2MB and the other almost 4MB.

Thanx,
AJG

[Markus]

If memory serves me it's:
alien -i bläh.rpm (to install directly)
alien -d bläh.rpm (to just convert to .deb)

[ZeroKun]

Actually, youre thinking of the dpkg command, markus. For RPMs use "alien --install blah.rpm".

[Markus]

Well, it's a bit faster to write -i than --install and I do believe they do the same thing. This time I even checked man alien.

[ZeroKun]

I think i used -i instead of --install out of habit and it didnt work, but my memory is fuzzy since it was a day ago >.>

[Markus]

That's nothing, my memory is fuzzy all the time :D

[ZeroKun]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention something important. Not all RPMs will work with Knoppix, since its based on Debian.

[champagnemojo]

Yeah, you can use the -i tag to install them right away. But for some reason I always like to see it create the deb and then use dpkg to install. A file of a couple of megs might take a little while btw. If you have konqueror open and visible while you type the command in the CLI you can watch while the file is created (a folder will pop up while it's doing it's thing) and see when the deb pops up.

Oh, and you don't need the -d tag...it will convert to deb without installing by default.

[Markus]

Oh, and you don't need the -d tag...it will convert to deb without installing by default.
Ah thanks. I'm starting to see a couple of useless posts by me :lol:

[mimes]

Where do you save the .rpm files to in order for alien to find them, because i keep getting the error message that the file was not found.

[Quest-Master]

Just wondering, where did you download the RPM? I'm at their site, and I can't seem to find a download link ANYWHERE :(

[gnarvaja]

I tried alien a couple of times with a package, and if the package is too big (>14MB) it completely hangs the machine. I have to turn it off and on again. For smaller files I don't have a problem. I could repeat it using Knoppix 3.4 and 3.6. I have 256MB RAM PC.