diff --git a/Alien/Package/Deb.pm b/Alien/Package/Deb.pm
index e61780a..f42d524 100644
--- a/Alien/Package/Deb.pm
+++ b/Alien/Package/Deb.pm
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ sub getcontrolfile {
 	else {
 		# Have to handle old debs without a leading ./ and
 		# new ones with it.
-		return `ar p $file control.tar.gz | tar Oxzf - $controlfile ./$controlfile 2>/dev/null`
+		return `ar p $file control.tar.gz | gzip -dc | tar Oxf - $controlfile ./$controlfile 2>/dev/null`
 	}
 }
 
@@ -166,7 +166,7 @@ sub scan {
 	}
 	else {
 		@filelist=map { chomp; s:\./::; "/$_" }
-			  `ar p $file data.tar.gz | tar tzf -`;
+			  `ar p $file data.tar.gz | gzip -dc | tar tf -`;
 	}
 	$this->filelist(\@filelist);
 
@@ -194,7 +194,7 @@ sub unpack {
 			or die "Unpacking of `$file' failed: $!";
 	}
 	else {
-		system("ar p $file data.tar.gz | (cd ".$this->unpacked_tree."; tar zxpf -)") == 0
+		system("ar p $file data.tar.gz | gzip -dc | (cd ".$this->unpacked_tree."; tar xpf -)") == 0
 			or die "Unpacking of `$file' failed: $!";
 	}
 
diff --git a/Alien/Package/Slp.pm b/Alien/Package/Slp.pm
index d865cb6..3c12e37 100644
--- a/Alien/Package/Slp.pm
+++ b/Alien/Package/Slp.pm
@@ -199,7 +199,7 @@ sub unpack {
 		system("bzip2 -d < $file | (cd ".$this->unpacked_tree."; tar xpf -)")
 	}
 	elsif ($compresstype == 1) {
-		system("cat $file | (cd ".$this->unpacked_tree."; tar zxpf -)")
+		system("gzip -dc $file | (cd ".$this->unpacked_tree."; tar xpf -)")
 	}
 	else {
 		die "package uses an unknown compression type, $compresstype (please file a bug report)";
diff --git a/debian/changelog b/debian/changelog
index e044c0c..3ab17b0 100644
--- a/debian/changelog
+++ b/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+alien (7.24) unstable; urgency=low
+
+  * Patch from Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> to make it used gzip -dc | tar
+    everywhere it used to use tar zxvf. The problem with the latter is
+    that, on red hat anyway, tar or gzip seems to be broken, and tar does
+    not see an end-of-file marker, causing alien to hang when converting
+    rpms to debs. Closes: #96200
+
+ -- Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>  Wed,  9 May 2001 11:09:16 -0400
+
 alien (7.23) unstable; urgency=low
 
   * Moved files out of perl privlib, Closes: #95512