Alien (file converter)

Alien is a computer program that converts between different Linux package formats, created by Joey Hess and presently maintained by Kyle Barry.

Alien

Original author(s)	Joey Hess
Stable release	8.95.5 / August 22, 2021 (2021-08-22)
Repository	salsa.debian.org/debian/alien
Written in	Perl
Operating system	Linux
Type	Package conversion
License	GPLv2+
Website	alien-pkg-convert.sourceforge.io

Features

Alien supports conversion between Linux Standard Base (LSB), LSB-compliant .rpm packages, .deb, Stampede (.slp), Solaris (.pkg) and Slackware (.tgz, .txz, .tbz, .tlz) 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. Automatic installation 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.

Usage

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.

Terminal commands for Alien:
$ alien ${filename}.rpm # Rpm to Deb

$ alien -k ${filename}.tar.gz # Tar.gz to Deb

$ alien -d ${filename}.tar.bz2 # Tar.bz2 to Deb

$ alien --to-deb ~/${filename}.tgz # Tgz to Deb

$ alien -r ${filename}.deb

It might require Super User Privileges to run the command. If it does then proceed with the commands below
$ sudo alien ${filename}.rpm # Rpm to Deb

$ sudo alien -k ${filename}.tar.gz # Tar.gz to Deb

$ sudo alien -d ${filename}.tar.bz2 # Tar.bz2 to Deb

$ sudo alien --to-deb ~/${filename}.tgz # Tgz to Deb

$ sudo alien -r ${filename}.deb

Similar applications

• CheckInstall, for the source tarball (i.e. Gentoo) to .deb (Debian).

See also

• Package management system

External links

• "Official website". sourceforge.io. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
• "Previous page for Alien by Joey Hess". joeyh.name. 2016-10-16. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
• "alien(1)". manpages.debian.org. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
• "alien(1)". manpages.ubuntu.com. Retrieved 2018-03-08.
• "fakeroot(1)". manpages.debian.org. Retrieved 2018-04-23. an alien helper utility