Alien (software)

Infobox Software
name = Alien



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latest release version = 8.72
latest release date = release date|2008|05|01
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operating system = Linux
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genre = Package conversion
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website = http://kitenet.net/programs/alien/

Alien is a computer program that converts between different Linux package formats. It supports conversion between Linux Standard Base, RPM, deb, Stampede (.slp), Solaris (.pkg) and Slackware (.tgz) packages. It is also capable of automatically installing the generated packages, and can try to convert the installation scripts included in the archive as well. The latter feature should be used with caution since Linux distributions may vary significantly from one another, and using install scripts automatically converted from an alien format may break the system. The alien tool is specially written for Linux.

*A sample usage of "alien": # alien --to-rpm --scripts ./mypkg.deb

This will convert mypkg.deb to mypkg.rpm with the preinst, postinst, prerm and postrm scripts from the Debian package (deb) into the RPM package.

External links

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* [http://kitenet.net/programs/alien/ Alien package converter software]