Install DEB files on RHEL, Fedora, CentOS

RPM from DEB: If you use the distributions mentioned in the title, at some point you will come across (or encounter) the problem: The package you want to install does not exist as an RPM file. What you can do is download the source code of the package and compile it yourself to create an RPM file.

But there is another way.

Debian-based distributions have far more users than those using RPM files. So the number of packages available in their repositories is much higher.

Thus it is common for the phenomenon to exist as file DEB the package you want but not as an RPM.

Below we will show you how to install the package you are interested in from a DEB file to distributions RedHat, FedoraAnd Centos Linux with the help of a small utility called alien.

Installing the alien

Alien is an application that allows to convert various packages. Currently it supports conversion to and from RPM, DEB, Stampede SLP, LSB, Slackware TGZ and Solaris PKG files.

Download the alien from the terminal with the following command:

wget -c https://sourceforge.NET/projects/alien-pkg-convert/files/release/alien_8.95.tar.xz

After downloading, unzip the file:

tar xf alien_8.95.tar.xz

Alien uses Perl, so you will need to compile the source. Install Perl with the following command:

dnf install perl

(If you haven't already installed it). You can then continue with the alien source code compile. The following command should be executed within the source code dir. It will compile and continue with installing the application:

perl Makefile.PL; make; make install

Convert DEB packages to RPM

Once the alien is installed, packet conversion is a game. To convert a Debian package to RPM format

alien --to-rpm -.deb

where the file name.deb is the downloaded DEB package. This will create the RPM you need to proceed with the installation.

rpm -ivh -.rpm

The alien utility works great for small packages that do not have many dependencies, but can have problems converting larger packages.