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objects. These objects can read all relevant details about a package, and
can generate packages based on that information. Thus, converting from one
format to another becomes a simple matter of generating one of these
objects, pointing it at a package, mutating it into the destination
class, and telling it to write the new package out! A basic alien can now
be written using these objects in one "line" of perl -- in fact, here is
one:
perl -MAlien::Package::Deb -MAlien::Package::Rpm -e '
$p=Alien::Package::Rpm->new(filename => shift); $p->unpack;
* Almost every line of code has been rewritten.
* Package descriptions now include a note that they were converted with
alien. There are other numerous changes to the converted packages, for
instance, generated .deb's now have more info in their copyright file.
* The template files were all moved inside the objects, which is actually
cleaner and is certainly easier to deal with.
* Usernames are now looked up the way POSIX intended.
* alien.1 is now generated from POD docs.
* Alien can now convert into multiple formats at once.
* Alien now always cleans up after failed converts, Closes: #62331
* Alien can now be used to just install a package with no conversion.
Closes: #53441
* Use a Makefile.PL because that seems to make sense, which means lots of
the build system had to be changed.
Please read alien's man page for general documentation. Getting alien: The newest versions of alien are available at the alien home page; drop by http://kitenet.net/programs/alien/ On metalab and its mirrors, alien is located in the pub/Linux/utils/scripts/ directory. You can also get rpm or deb packages of alien: deb: ftp://ftp.debian.org/debian/unstable/binary-all/admin/alien_*.deb rpm: ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/contrib/noarch/alien-*.rpm Other things you'll need: To use alien, you will need several other programs. Alien is a perl program, and requires perl version 5.004 or greater. If you use slackware, make sure you get perl 5.004, the perl 5.003 in slackware does not work with alien! To convert packages to or from rpms, you need the Red Hat Package Manager; get it from Red Hat's ftp site. If you want to convert packages into debian packages, you will need the dpkg, dpkg-dev, and debhelper packages, which are available on the Debian ftp site. To convert to/from stampede packages, you will need bzip2, get it from http://sourceware.cygnus.com/bzip2/index.html Attention, Slackware, Red Hat, and Stampede users: Bruce S. Babcock <babcock@math.psu.edu> has put together an "alien-extra" package of all the extra files you need to use alien on a Red Hat or Slackware system. (Debian systems automatically have the required files.) The Slackware version is at ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/alien-extra.tgz The RedHat version is at ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/alien-extra.rpm The Stampede version is at ftp://ykbsb2.yk.psu.edu/pub/alien/alien-extra.slp Programs that use alien: I know of one program that acts as a frontend to alien - kpackviewer is a package viewer that can convert between package formats by using alien. Its homepage is at http://www.momentus.com.br/users/hook/kpackviewer.html Please report any bugs in alien to the author: Joey Hess <joeyh@debian.org>