I’m going to start writing simple Linux tutorials for my own references because I have a bad memory when it comes to these simple things and I’m just so lazy to surf for it over and over again. If you think it’s useful for you then do use them and leave me a comment or something. Today’s post is about Alien. (nope not those UFO aliens, or weird-o type of people that SOME of you refer to as ‘aliens’)

If you’re using Ubuntu and you have RPM files that you wish to install and want to change it’s format to .deb debian package, then you’ll need to use alien. Alien is a program that converts between rpm, dpkg and slackware tgz file formats.

To install it simply go to your terminal and type:

adamz@Ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install alien

To use alien type the following on your terminal:

adamz@Ubuntu:~$ sudo alien -k rpm_file_name.rpm

And it will convert your .rpm file to .deb format. This might take a while depending on the size of your file.

To install deb files type the following on your terminal:

adamz@Ubuntu:~$ sudo dpkg -i deb_file_name.deb

And your deb file will be installed.