1 Preliminary Note
In this example I use a Debian Sarge system, and I will show how to convert the mysql-zrm rpm
package to a .deb file and install that one. The procedure is the same for Ubuntu.
2 Alien Installation
Alien is available in the normal Debian repositories, so we can install it like this:
apt-get install alien
3 Converting .rpm To .deb
Next we download the current mysql-zrm rpm package (1.1-1 at the time of this writing):
cd /tmp
wget
http://www.zmanda.com/downloads/community/ZRM-MySQL/1.1/Linux/MySQL-zrm-1.1-1.noarch.rpmTo convert it into a .deb package, we simply run
alien MySQL-zrm-1.1-1.noarch.rpm
Afterwards, run
ls -l
in the /tmp directory, and you'll see that alien has created the file mysql-zrm_1.1-2_all.deb.
You'll also notice that alien has counted up the version number, it's now 1.1-2 instead of
1.1-1. If you want to keep the original version number, you must use the -k switch:
alien -k MySQL-zrm-1.1-1.noarch.rpm
will create the file mysql-zrm_1.1-1_all.deb.
To install the new .deb file, we use dpkg -i:
dpkg -i mysql-zrm_1.1-1_all.deb
Now mysql-zrm is installed and fully functional (you still might have to edit its configuration file
though).
If you want to save the dpkg -i step, you can have alien install the package. The command
alien -i MySQL-zrm-1.1-1.noarch.rpm
would convert the original rpm package and immediately install it.
You see, converting .rpm files to .deb files is very easy. You can have a look at
man alien
to learn about what else you can do with alien.
