installing packaged problem

[mementomike]

Hi I have just finished getting my networking linux problem fixed and now I have started to download some files

but I am haviung great difficultys working out how to actually install things on linux etc..
does anyone know a site for absolute newbs that has indepth info and tutorials on how to achieve this...?

specifically I tried to install a file and I got this error...

<home/knoppix/winex3.3-build3.i586.rpm';echo RESULT=$?
rpm: To install rpm packages on Debian systems, use alien. See README.Debian.
error: cannot open Packages index using db3 - No such file or directory (2)
error: cannot open Packages database in /var/lib/rpm
RESULT=1

So I looked up this alien software on the net and found it and it said I had to donwload perl etc and some other software directly in debian ...

am i working towards the right lines of getting this winex installed? or is their another avenue I should be exploring... thanks

mike

[OErjan]

look for files ending in .deb or use

apt-get install *

instead.
The * stands for any number of any caracter in any order/combination.
so apt-get install mozilla shold giv you mozilla

[Markus]

IIRC alien worked out of the box on Knoppix. As in:
alien -i packagename.rpm (to install a .rpm).
That said, it's easier to stick to apt about which there's a good sticky in the "Hdd install" section.

[mementomike]

ok i tried the following

alien -i winex3.3-build3.i586.rpm

and i got this in return

dpkg: error processing winex_3.3-1_i386.deb (--install):
 trying to overwrite `/usr/bin/fnt2bdf`, which is also in package wine-utils
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 winex_3.3-1_i386.deb

does anyone know what this means and what i can do now to resolve this problem??

thanks

mike