Here’s how to convert a .rpm file into a .deb file in Linux Mint using ‘alien’ utility:
1. Issue the following command at the terminal –
sudo apt-get install alien
Enter ‘y’ to confirm the installation.
2. Now we’ll convert ‘opera-10.62-6438.i386.rpm’ into a .deb file. Issue the following command at the terminal –
sudo alien <file-name>
In our case,
sudo alien opera-10.62-6438.i386.rpm
Notice that the version number of the converted package changed from 10.62-6438 to 10.62-6439. If you want to preserve the original version number, use the ‘-k’ option. (So the command in our case would have been ‘sudo alien -k opera-10.62-6438.i386.rpm‘, if we were to preserve the original version number).
3. Now issue the following command at the terminal –
sudo chmod 777 opera-10.62-6439.i386.deb
This will ensure that users will have permissions to install the converted .deb file.
4. Now let us install opera browser using the converted .deb file –
5. That’s it. Opera browser installed, up and running from a .deb file converted from a .rpm file. Note that this utility supports conversion from LSB, Red Hat, Stampede and Slackware packages. This utility is very useful in case you want to install a package which is not available as a .deb file and should work on all Debian based derivative distributions including Ubuntu.
