8. Use Debian Packages - Convert deb to rpm

Debian Linux is another popular distribution. You can use the debian packages for Sparc, PowerPC, m68k, MIPS, Alpha, Arm, Intel X86 or Itanium.

8.1 Debian Packing Program

To build real debs that contain software, you'll need: binutils, cpp, cpio, dpkg-dev, file, gcc, libc6-dev, make, patch, perl dh-make, debhelper, devscripts, fakeroot and lintian . If your package needs to prompt the user for configuration information when it installs, get debconf .

The main debian programs you need to get are:

• dpkg-dev : This package contains the tools needed to create Debian archives. It also contains the Debian Programmers and Policy manuals.

• debmake : This is a higher level set of tools for creating Debian packages. It makes the whole process tremendously easier.

• debhelper : A collection of programs that can be used in a debian/rules file to automate common tasks related to building debian packages. Programs are included to install various files into your package, compress files, fix file permissions, integrate your package with the debian menu system, suidmanager, doc-base, etc. Most debian packages use debhelper as part of their build process.

• debconf : Debconf is a configuration management system for debian packages. Packages use Debconf to ask questions when they are installed.

• apt-howto : A Guide to APT. This manual tries to be a quick but complete source of information about the APT system and its features. It documents the main uses of APT with many examples. (You may want to edit apt-howto*.sgml and change debiandoc to linuxdoc and run sgml2html).

Get these from http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages, go here and type in the search box dpkg-dev or apt-howto and select Stable, Testing or Unstable in the distribution. Download and build on your Unix system (Solaris, AIX, HPUX).

See Debian Package Management , Debian Policy Manual, Debian New Maintainer's Guide and apt+rpm howto.

8.2 Debian to Redhat RPM

To install Debian packages on Sun Solaris 2.8 (Sparc/Ultra-sparc) I downloaded all the debian packages for sparc from http://www.debian.org. Go here and click on distribution->sparc. Better still, purchase the Debian binary and source cdrom for Sparc (or for PowerPC, Alpha). Use alien program to convert the debian packages to redhat rpm.

Get alien program from http://www.rpmfind.net.

solaris# rpm -i alien*.src.rpm
solaris# rpm -ba alien.spec
solaris# rpm -i alien.sparc.rpm
solaris# alien -r glibc*.deb     (..... this will create the rpm file)
solaris# rpm -i glibc-sparc*.rpm

Note alien program works only for binary debian packages.