Linux Magazine: Alien Packages and Linux Mirrors

"Do you administer multiple distributions and find it frustrating that you can find packages for some distros and not others? Have you ever tried looking for a .rpm only to find a .deb (or vice versa)? Sometimes, Linux can be maddening.

"Luckily, there's a program that can help solve this problem: alien. alien is a script that converts between the Red Hat .rpm, Debian .dpkg, Stampede .slp, and Slackware .tgz file formats. alien can also handle Solaris' .pkg file format. alien lets you to take a package from a system with a different distribution than the one you are running, and makes it usable on your system..."

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