2000-04-21 22:49:11 +00:00
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Please read alien's man page for general documentation.
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1999-09-05 05:50:40 +00:00
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Getting alien:
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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The newest versions of alien are available at the alien home page; drop by
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http://kitenet.net/programs/alien/
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2000-04-21 21:34:28 +00:00
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On metalab and its mirrors, alien is located in the
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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pub/Linux/utils/scripts/ directory.
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1999-09-05 05:50:40 +00:00
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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You can also get rpm or deb packages of alien:
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deb: ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/unstable/binary-all/admin/alien_*.deb
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rpm: ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/noarch/alien-*.rpm
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1999-09-05 05:50:40 +00:00
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Other things you'll need:
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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To use alien, you will need several other programs. Alien is a perl
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program, and requires perl version 5.004 or greater. If you use slackware,
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make sure you get perl 5.004, the perl 5.003 in slackware does not work
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with alien!
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To convert packages to or from rpms, you need the Red Hat Package Manager;
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2002-03-27 06:15:14 +00:00
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get it from Red Hat's ftp site. If your distribution (eg, Red Hat)
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provides a rpm-build package, you will need it as well to generate rpms.
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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If you want to convert packages into debian packages, you will need the
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2001-05-24 01:09:11 +00:00
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dpkg, dpkg-dev, and debhelper (version 3 or above) packages, which are
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2004-02-27 03:04:40 +00:00
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available on http://packages.debian.org
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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2000-04-21 21:34:28 +00:00
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To convert to/from stampede packages, you will need bzip2, get it from
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http://sourceware.cygnus.com/bzip2/index.html
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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Attention, Slackware, Red Hat, and Stampede users: Bruce S. Babcock
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<babcock@math.psu.edu> has put together an "alien-extra"
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package of all the extra files you need to use alien on
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2000-09-11 23:27:32 +00:00
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a Red Hat or Slackware system. (Debian systems automatically have all
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2000-04-21 21:34:28 +00:00
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required files.)
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2000-09-11 23:27:32 +00:00
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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The Slackware version is at
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ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/alien-extra.tgz
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The RedHat version is at
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ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/alien-extra.rpm
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The Stampede version is at
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ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/alien-extra.slp
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2002-01-25 04:42:41 +00:00
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Solaris users can find pkg's of much of the above software,
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at http://mah.everybody.org/hacks/os/solaris/ , thanks to Mark
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A. Hershberger <mah@everybody.org>.
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2000-07-20 22:52:50 +00:00
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Note:
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Alien is really designed to be used to convert from alien file formats to
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the packaging format used by the distribution you run it on. Of course,
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it can also convert from your distribution's native format to alien
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formats, or from one alien format to another. Do be warned though, that
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if these latter types of conversions are done, the generated packages may
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have incorrect dependancy information. This is known to be true if you
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convert a rpm into a deb on a Red Hat system, for example. Even with
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alien-extra installed, dpkg will be unable to properly calculate library
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dependancies for the deb it is creating, and you will get a package
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without any library dependancies.
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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Programs that use alien:
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I know of one program that acts as a frontend to alien - kpackviewer is a
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2000-04-21 21:34:28 +00:00
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package viewer that can convert between package formats by using alien. Its
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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homepage is at http://www.momentus.com.br/users/hook/kpackviewer.html
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1999-09-05 05:50:40 +00:00
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2002-08-19 16:53:30 +00:00
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Corel also appears to have (or had) something in Corel linux that
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uses alien.
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2000-09-11 23:27:32 +00:00
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2000-04-21 06:16:26 +00:00
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Please report any bugs in alien to the author:
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1999-09-05 05:50:40 +00:00
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2000-04-21 22:49:11 +00:00
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Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>
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2003-05-14 22:14:29 +00:00
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It is helpful to provide a log of alien --veryverbose reproducing the
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bug. I may also ask for the package that exposes the problem you saw.
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