KNOW HOW Alien
Alien
Debian Goes Extraterrestrial
lien is a Perl program and requires
Alien is a program designed for converting packages in third party formats to
Perl Version 5.004 or better. You
Acan call perl --version from the the format required by your own distribution for installation purposes.
command line to discover what version is
The tool runs on most major distributions and can handle various package
installed on your machine:
formats. In this month s article we will be looking into the topic of converting
huhn@transpluto:~$ perl U
--version
 alien software to known package formats with Debian. BY HEIKE JURZIK
This is perl, v5.6.1 built for U
i386-linux
To create RPMs, you will obviously need
to install the Red Hat Package Manager
([1]). If you use apt to install Alien, any
dependent packages will be installed at
the same time:
transpluto:~# apt-get install U
alien
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages U
will be installed:
debconf-utils debhelper html2U
text librpm4 rpm
The following NEW packages willU
be installed:
alien debconf-utils debhelperU
html2text librpm4 rpm
0 packages upgraded, 6 newly U
installed, 0 to remove and 156
not upgraded.
Need to get 1320kB of archives.U on and to other packages. This feature to convert a package, if not, the following
After unpacking 4260kB will beU ensures perfect integration of the new error message will be displayed:
used. software, and allows you to remove it
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] cleanly from your system, if required. Must run as root to convert to U
However, the format is not used by any deb format (or you may use fakeU
Press the [y] key to confirm and Debian other distributions (except distributions root).
will get on with the job. Just one more based on Debian).
note before we get down to the nitty Similarly, you will experience some After successfully completing the conver-
gritty: Alien is still under development difficulty if you try to install RPM format- sion, alien issues the following message:
(this includes the latest version 8.12), i.e. ted packages on Debian. Of course, there
occasional errors may occur. So before is normally no need for this, as Debian transpluto:~# alien mypackage.U
you start converting really important includes a variety of packages, and most rpm
packages such as init or libc with this new programs are quickly made available mypackage.deb generated
tool, it is a good idea to find out if your in the .deb package format. But if you do
Debian version already has the software happen to need to install a third party Before installing the package, you check
you need in Debian package format. RPM package, you can rely on alien for where the components have been stored
support. by typing dpkg -c. dpkg --info mypack-
From .rpm to .deb
The simplest syntax for alien on the age.deb which provides details of the
A Debian package(.deb suffix) contains a command line is alien package.rpm. You characteristics such as version number,
range of information about dependencies will need to have superuser (root) access dependencies, or even a description of
36 September 2002 www.linux-magazine.com
NASA
Alien KNOW HOW
the software. If you intend to install the ensure that Debian can handle the third In contrast to Debian based systems,
package, you may want ensure that the party package. To do so you can type where apt will automatically perform a
installation will succeed under your real dpkg -s mypackage. The command line complete installation of the required
conditions. To test this you need to type output should be something along the packages, you will need to install the
dpkg --no-act -i mypackage.deb, then the lines of Status: install ok installed. By the RPM packages manually (see [2]).
system will let you know if it finds any way: You can type dpkg to deinstall any Alien will also allow you to create tgz
dependency issues. Everything OK? Next packages you have installed. If you use packages (parameter -t or --to-tgz) for
time you can omit the --no-act option, and the -P option (abbreviation for --purge), Slackware, or pkg packages (parameter -p
install the package without prior checks. you not only deinstall the software, but or --to-pkg) for Solaris. In addition, alien
If you are sure that you want to install you also remove the configuration files will not only run on Debian, but there is a
the package without a prior check, you completely. A simple command, such as version for RPM based systems. This tool
can set the following Alien flag when dpkg -r mypackage (for --remove) will goes by the name of alien-extra  for
converting the package -i (or the long only remove the package, leaving all the information and binaries see [4]. Of
form: --install): settings under /etc intact. course, conversions of this kind can
cause issues. You will often need libraries
And vice versa?
transpluto:~# alien -i U and discover that you either have the
mypackage.rpm Of course, you can use alien to create wrong version or do not have the library
Selecting previously deselectedU RPMs from Debian packages. To do so, at all. So it makes sense to first check and
package mypackage. use the --to-rpm parameter: see if the package is included in your own
(Reading database ... 53783 U distribution before you start installing
files and directories currently transpluto:~# alien --to-rpm U  alien software on your machine. %
installed.) mypackage.deb
Unpacking mypackage (from U mypackage.rpm generated
INFO
mypackage.deb) ...
[1] http://www.rpm.org/
Setting up mypackage (1.0.3-1) U You can now install this package on
... those distributions based on RPM. If
[2] http://rpmfind.net/
errors occur when you call rpm -i
[3] http://www.kitenet.net/programs/alien/
No errors occurred during conversion and mypackage.rpm, the error may be to do
[4] ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/
installation, but you may still want to with unresolved dependencies.
NOT ROCKET SCIENCE
NOTICE THE DIFFERENCE in price
between our server and the competition?
You don t need a degree in economics to
notice the cost savings. At nearly half the
price of Dell, our Teramac 110 1U
INTEL 1U RACKMOUNT
rackmount server represents excellent
value. Factor in a faster processor, more
LINUX SERVER
memory and more storage, and you can
save even more.
DNUK DELL
Teramac R110 PowerEdge 350
At Digital Networks, we specialise in
1U rackmount server 1U rackmount server
servers, storage, workstations, desktops
Intel Pentium III 1.20GHz Intel Pentium III 1.0GHz
and notebooks designed specifically for
512MB RAM 512MB RAM
Linux use. Unlike our competition, we
80GB 7,200RPM ATA disk drive 80GB 7,200RPM ATA disk drive
Red Hat 7.3 pre-installed Red Hat 7.2 pre-installed offer Linux pre-installed on all our
3 years on-site warranty 3 years on-site warranty
hardware  completely free of charge. We
offer Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSE, plus
Ł800 + VAT Ł1539 + VAT
Microsoft Windows as well.
Prices correct as of 18/7/02. Please check www.dnuk.com and
www.dell.co.uk for current prices. Visit www.dnuk.com and find out why
corporate customers, small and medium
businesses and most UK universities
Digital Networks choose us for their IT requirements.