Install .rpm Files in Debian and Ubuntu

Posted on October 1, 2006 by ruchi 32 Comments

Some time you might find some applications are having only .rpm files but you want a .deb package for your debian,Ubuntu and other debian derived ditributions.If you can’t find .deb debian package in any of the debian,ubuntu repositories or elsewhere, you can use the alien package converter to install the .rpm file.

Alien is a program that converts between the rpm, dpkg, stampede slp, and slackware tgz file formats. If you want to use a package from another distribution than the one you have installed on your system, you can use alien to convert it to your preferred package format and install it.

Despite the large version number, alien is still (and will probably always be) rather experimental software. It has been used by many people for many years, but there are still many bugs and limitations.

Alien should not be used to replace important system packages, like sysvinit, shared libraries, or other things that are essential for the functioning of your system. Many of these packages are set up differently by Debian and Red Hat, and packages from the different distributions cannot be used interchangably. In general, if you can’t uninstall the package without breaking your system, don’t try to replace it with an alien version.

Install alien in debian

#apt-get install alien

This will install all the required packages.Now you can start converting your .rpm files to .deb packages.

Available Options for alien

Convert the package.rpm into a package.deb

#alien -d package-name.rpm

Convert the package.rpm into a package.deb, and install the generated package.

#alien -i package-name.rpm

If you want to keeps alien from changing the version number use the following command

#alien -k rpm-package-file.rpm

Example

Suppose we have a avg antivirus avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.rpm file

To convert .rpm to debian

#alien -k avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.rpm

Now you should be having avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.deb file

To install .deb file

#dpkg -i avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.deb

If you don’t use -k option you should see avg71lms_r30-1_i386.deb file the difference is it will add 1

Install alien in Ubuntu

$sudo apt-get install alien

You can check the above section for available options

Example

Suppose we have a avg antivirus avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.rpm file

To convert .rpm to debian

$sudo alien -k avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.rpm

Now you should be having avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.deb file

To install .deb file

$sudo dpkg -i avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.deb

If you don’t use -k option you should see avg71lms_r30-1_i386.deb file the difference is it will add 1

If you want more available options for alien check alien man page

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32 thoughts on “Install .rpm Files in Debian and Ubuntu”

Mark on October 6, 2006 at 2:05 am said:

Why not just install the .rpm file directly using smart, rather than converting it using alien and then installing it with dpkg.

One less step involved that way.

http://labix.org/smart
http://labix.org/smart/features

http://packages.debian.org/unstable/source/smart

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/07/07/1612259
Admin on October 6, 2006 at 7:24 am said:

thanks for your suggestion.I will write an article how to use smart after testing
Imran on February 12, 2007 at 6:40 pm said:

I think using alien is safer in some cases, as you can look at the generated
.deb file and see what files it will install to make sure the package will
not change any critical files.
Manish on March 1, 2007 at 7:20 pm said:

the instructions helped me a lot with my installation.

thanks and keep up the good work

newbie
Shinbu-Otaku on March 5, 2007 at 11:25 am said:

I have used Alien last night to install both AVG and the newest K9copy, but i have problems with both. By the looks of things i cannot update AVG as i do not have the privileges, and K9copy does not have a launcher, so i have to boot it from the terminal. Can anyone help me on either of these (i might be wrong with the AVG one, it might only let you update when new updates are available but tells u that you dont have the privileges other wise)
Johnny on March 6, 2007 at 5:59 am said:

I converted an rpm of KDMTheme to a .deb file and it seems to have installed but I can’t find the program for the life of me. Please help!
joshh on April 15, 2007 at 9:32 am said:

I just installed ubuntu on my laptop and cant figure out how to install anything on it… I’ve been using windows my whole life! I have a pile of rpm, tar.gz(2)’s, and kth files on desktop waiting to be installed. I am a complete n00b.

I’m scratching my head over this one…

any help would be great!

email:
[email protected]
Admin on April 15, 2007 at 10:04 am said:

if you want to install .rpm you need to open terminal and you need to install from command line.

If you want to unpack tar.gz file

you need to use the following commnad

tar xzvf filename.tar.gz

If you want unpack tar.gz2 file you need to use the following command

tar jxvf filename.tar.gz2
Dov on May 9, 2007 at 11:48 am said:

Why not just refer a new user to the Package Manager? He’ll most likely find all he wants there easily?
fireashes on August 7, 2007 at 5:48 pm said:

I have the same problem as #5 Shinbu-Otaku about the AVG. : i cannot update AVG as i do not have the privileges. Can anyone help me. (i might be wrong with the AVG one, it might only let you update when new updates are available but tells u that you dont have the privileges other wise)
zama on April 22, 2008 at 11:25 am said:

Hi.. i got this new machine installed with linux on it now i am trying to install rpm packages and to configure the mail server it gives me a hard time i can;t find the solution to it.i have been google it but still then i can;t seem to find the right solutions. if can anyone help me, i real need to see this. thanks

any help will be appreciated.
Chris Snyder on July 13, 2008 at 7:17 pm said:

Folks, if you are a new user trying to install Linux software, the tool described in this post is not for you. Different Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, SUSE, etc) each have their own packages and package formats. It is generally a bad idea to try to install a package meant for one distribution onto another. You can’t just mix and match like you can (to some extent) in Windows.

Please refer to the official website and help forums for your specific Linux distribution for how to install the software you need.
Amol Shende on September 4, 2008 at 4:40 am said:

How to get GUI on UBUNTU 8.04 LTS server.
Kevin Valentine on November 6, 2008 at 4:28 pm said:

Hi Amol,

Been over 2 months so you’ve probably figured it out by now, but what the heck …
You need to install the ubuntu-desktop package as follows:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

Answer yes to whatever questions it may ask, make sure you have enough disk space, then walk away for about 2 hours. When you come back you’ll most likely still have black screen. Need to start gdm like this:
sudo /etc/init.d/gdm start

Hopefully bulletproof X won’t give you trouble 😉
Adam on February 6, 2009 at 5:58 pm said:

Why didn’t anyone respond to John (#6)?? I am having the same problem, I know that not all linux distros are the same, but if dpkg says something is installed, how the heck do I use it??
racolavito on February 10, 2009 at 1:36 am said:

I am new to Linux. 3 Days. I have installed Ubuntu 8.1 on my computer. It wiped out the loading of my Windows XP. Then I tried to load the program Openoffice 3.0. It downloaded but then I can not get it to install. You say get the version for your operating system but I could only find a RPM version and that was from the OpenOffice.org webpage.
0guzhan on March 14, 2009 at 9:30 am said:

Thanks… Very much useful…
mandy on March 18, 2009 at 5:03 pm said:

the problem of installing .rpm files for noobs is still not addressed. please somebody care to guide…:)
humtaro on June 26, 2009 at 8:35 pm said:

An alien GUI

http://code.google.com/p/foxoman/wiki/PackageConverter
Ran on July 20, 2009 at 6:56 am said:

I just install a gyachi by converting .rpm to deb but when the installation is complete the gyachi can’t seem to work. What is the probable problem please help I am just a noob.
Matt on April 8, 2010 at 6:25 am said:

To install .rpm files on Ubuntu/Debian you will need to install alien.
::FIRST UPDATE APT-GET:
sudo apt-get updateTHEN INSTALL ALIEN:sudo apt-get install alienWhen that is finished, you must change the directory of which your .rmp file is located.sudo cd /home/YOURNAME/in this case it is in the home folder. THEN CONVERT .RPM to DEB using Alien:sudo alien -k filename.rpmwhen this is finished, there should be a .deb file. If you receive errors using alien, then that file can not be converted. After you converted to .deb: sudo dpkg -i filename.debAnd there you go! If you have a .bin file, type in code: ./FILENAME.binThis will convert the .bin file into the .rpm file most of the time. Hope this helps.
Preston on April 26, 2010 at 6:47 pm said:

When I try to run alien I get this error:

Package build failed. Here’s the log:
dh_testdir
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_clean -k -d
dh_installdirs
dh_installdocs
dh_installchangelogs
find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -not -name debian -print0 | \
xargs -0 -r -i cp -a {} debian/storman
dh_compress
dh_makeshlibs
dh_installdeb
dh_shlibdeps
dpkg-shlibdeps: failure: couldn’t find library libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 needed by debian/storman/usr/StorMan/libSTORUTIL.so (its RPATH is ”).
Note: libraries are not searched in other binary packages that do not have any shlibs or symbols file.
To help dpkg-shlibdeps find private libraries, you might need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
dh_shlibdeps: command returned error code 512
make: [binary-arch] Error 1 (ignored)
dh_gencontrol
dpkg-gencontrol: error: current host architecture ‘amd64′ does not appear in package’s architecture list (i386)
dh_gencontrol: command returned error code 65280
make: *** [binary-arch] Error 1
find: `StorMan-4.00’: No such file or directory

Im kind of a n00b but I can get around in linux. You help is much appriciated. Thanks in advance!
kumar on August 21, 2010 at 9:50 pm said:

i have been using open suse11. while installing operating system in LVM based method its not completed,suddenly system get hanged. anybody tel me the solution for this problem.
Alex on December 14, 2010 at 6:02 am said:

I used this method in Ubuntu desktop 10.10,but the deb file will disappear soon after creation,and I can’t install the deb file.Anybody tel me the solution for this problem
walkiria on January 20, 2011 at 5:16 pm said:

I tryed install the last version, but I received this error mensage:
root@nirvana:/usr/lib/jvm# ls
java-1.6.0-openjdk java-6-openjdk java-6-sun java-6-sun-1.6.0.22 jre-6u23-linux-i586.rpm jre-6u23-linux-i586-rpm.bin
root@nirvana:/usr/lib/jvm# alien -k jre-6u23-linux-i586.rpm
error: incorrect format: unknown tag
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package jre: postinst postrm prerm
Warning: Use the –scripts parameter to include the scripts.
chown: impossível acessar `jre-1.6.0_23//usr/java/jre1.6.0_23/lib/charsets.jar’: Arquivo ou diretório não encontrado
failed chowning /usr/java/jre1.6.0_23/lib/charsets.jar to 0:0: Procura ilegal at /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm line 265, line 38.

I was looking jexec in jre*.rpm archive and found this line:
BINFMT_MISC=/proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
JEXEC=/usr/java/default/lib/jexec
Last version of Java in my computer is in usr/lib/jvm
what can I do?
Jean-Régis on March 26, 2011 at 4:56 am said:

I have the same error: incorrect format: unknown tag
Package build failed
I’m looking for soluce!!!
SMB on April 17, 2011 at 11:40 pm said:

i have same problem , please help me

Package build failed. Here’s the log:
dh_testdir
dh_testdir
dh_testroot
dh_clean -k -d
dh_installdirs
dh_installdocs
dh_installchangelogs
find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -not -name debian -print0 | \
xargs -0 -r -i cp -a {} debian/storman
dh_compress
dh_makeshlibs
dh_installdeb
dh_shlibdeps
dpkg-shlibdeps: failure: couldn’t find library libstdc++-libc6.2-2.so.3 needed by debian/storman/usr/StorMan/libSTORUTIL.so (its RPATH is ”).
Note: libraries are not searched in other binary packages that do not have any shlibs or symbols file.
To help dpkg-shlibdeps find private libraries, you might need to set LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
dh_shlibdeps: command returned error code 512
make: [binary-arch] Error 1 (ignored)
dh_gencontrol
dpkg-gencontrol: error: current host architecture ‘amd64? does not appear in package’s architecture list (i386)
dh_gencontrol: command returned error code 65280
make: *** [binary-arch] Error 1
find: `StorMan-4.00?: No such file or directory
G CM on May 31, 2011 at 12:24 am said:

When i try to install openoffice rpm’s with sudo alien -k *rpm i have this problem

Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package jre: postinst postrm prerm Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts. mkdir: cannot create directory `jre-1.6.0_22': File exists unable to mkdir jre-1.6.0_22: at /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package.pm line 257.
please someone can help me?
Dieter Stroehle on January 31, 2012 at 12:10 pm said:

Hi, have worked some time now to get a Lexmark Z600 debian printer driver available for installation on the Linux eeePC 701. So far I achieved to make the two rpm files available, but was not able to convert them into .deb files due to error messages. Now I look for someone who will be able to convert them. If someone thinks to be able to convert please send your Email address to me and I will submit for conversion and return the converted files to me. Email-address is: [email protected]. Many thanks in advance
theOne on February 20, 2012 at 6:32 am said:

the alien -i option works great…thanks
Diego on November 3, 2014 at 11:12 am said:

Thank you, very helpful.
noviar bagus on May 15, 2015 at 3:17 am said:

it’s work. nice tutorial. thank you..

32 thoughts on “Install .rpm Files in Debian and Ubuntu”

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