[wplug] RPM, Deb, Tgz and package management

mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu
Mon Mar 11 21:22:38 EST 2002


On Mon, Mar 11, 2002 at 03:38:09PM +0000, Luquilla Hughes wrote:
> Hey all and especially Art,
>     This post is about the installfest on Sat. and talking with Art about 
> package managers and differences between deb and rpm. I believe that I made 
> a mistake (or mislead) in what I had said to you on Sat. and for some reason 
> remembered it on the drive home so I would just like to correct that. Deb 
> and Rpm packages although they are not interchangable they can be converted 
> with the use of a tool. I.e. you can install debian and use RPM's and that 
> goes vice versa. So it doesn't matter which distro you install the different 
> packages are available for you with a slight increase in sysadmin overhead.
> 
> A quick search on google of rpm2deb, deb2rpm revealed alien. this will allow 
> conversion of packages between rpm-deb-tgz which covers the distros of 
> RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware. and I believe that stampede amoung 
> others may also work.
> 
> I hope that this makes sense if anybody would like clarify or has used Alien 
> please speak up.
> 

Just keep in mind the varying policies w/regards to filesystems and
standard configuration commands.  Not all debs translate well to
rpms and not all rpms translate well to debs.  Some rpms use file-based
dependencies, which debs don't.  Debs have various other kinds of semi-
dependencies which rpms don't necessarily have.  And who knows what various
3rd-party packages might do to your system... Better to stick with
native packages if you possibly can.

It goes without saying, but, "Let the user beware".

-- 
; Matthew Danish <mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu>
; OpenPGP public key: C24B6010 on keyring.debian.org
; Signed or encrypted mail welcome.
; "There is no dark side of the moon really; matter of fact, it's all dark."



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