Tux Training

Installing an RPM file in Ubuntu/Debian

March 6, 2008, 1:05 pm

If you have an rpm file for a package you wish to install, and if you cannot find a .deb debian package in any of the Ubuntu repositories or elsewhere, you can use the alien package converter application to install the .rpm file.

Also see:How to install a deb file in openSuse

You can install alien itself from the Ubuntu Universe repository by adding the repository to your list of sources and doing:
$sudo apt-get update $sudo apt-get install alien

Installing the .rpm file

To install the .rpm file, you first need to convert it to a .deb file which can be installed on Ubuntu.
I assume that you downloaded the package to your Desktop (~/Desktop is the directory)
You can convert the .rpm to a .deb by using the following commands.

$sudo alien -k name-of-rpm-file.rpm
- This will convert the .rpm to a .deb.
- The “-k” will keep the version number. Otherwise alien adds a “1? to the version number.

$sudo dpkg -i name-of-deb-file.deb
- This will install the .deb package

Try reading the alien manpage for more details on how to convert other kinds of packages and the options available.