[K12OSN] OT: alien- for the linux guru's toolbox

[Barry Cisna]

Hello List,

This is not really k12ltsp specific, but here is a handy tool I think
several people here may be able to use at times. Alien, It converts
Debian.deb files to Fedora .rpm and to .tar.gz, and Stampede slp files and
so forth. Something you wouldn't need very often but at times is handy. I
have used it a few times and works like a champ.Surely not written by me
but just thought it worth mentioning. Of course be careful using it as it
could easily break things especially if you are installing init files and
the likes. Yikes!
Example: To convert a .deb file to .rpm
alien --to-rpm  xyz.deb
will output xyz.rpm into the same directory. How simple!:-)

Here is the url to check it out:

  http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/alien/

Thanks to ~joey
You only need a recent perl install on your distro for it to work so you
won't suffer from dependency H*%L trying to make it work.

 The alien.tar.gz has been converted to rpm by yours truly( my feeble
attempt at being geeky),for easy install convenience and can be
downloaded in either -src.rpm or -noarch.rpm here if you like:

 ftp://eazylivin.net/pub/alien

Take Care,

Barry Cisna