[kwlug-disc] how to install fedora rpms on ubuntu 10.04?

[Robert P. J. Day]

  i think i have most of what i need but it would be nice if someone
could fill in the remaining gaps to make sure this goes smoothly.

  i have two "noarch" rpms here:

http://rlandmann.fedorapeople.org/publican/

that i'd like to install on my ubuntu 10.04 system.  the first benefit
is that they're "noarch" which should simplify things in the sense of
not having to worry about library inconsistencies.

  my next worry is when rpms have complicated pre or post install
scripts which might not be compatible, but again, i'm lucking out:

$ rpm -qp --scripts publican-1.99-0.fc12.t47.noarch.rpm
$

$ rpm -qp --scripts publican-website-1.99-0.fc12.t47.noarch.rpm
postinstall scriptlet (using /bin/sh):
/usr/bin/perl -e 'use Publican::WebSite; my $ws = Publican::WebSite->new(); $ws->regen_all_toc();'
$

  so that second rpm package has all of one perl command as a
postinstall scriptlet, which means i could simply lose that script and
run it later manually, i would think.

  so, finally, run "alien" to do the conversion:

$ sudo alien publican-1.99-0.fc12.t47.noarch.rpm
error: incorrect format: unknown tag
publican_1.99-1_all.deb generated
$

$ sudo alien publican-website-1.99-0.fc12.t47.noarch.rpm
error: incorrect format: unknown tag
Warning: Skipping conversion of scripts in package publican-website: postinst
Warning: Use the --scripts parameter to include the scripts.
publican-website_1.99-1_all.deb generated
$

  actually, that looks pretty good -- a predictable warning about
leaving a post-install script behind.  now ... what can i do to sanity
check those two .deb packages before manually installing them?    and
what would be the safest strategy?  the system already has a
native (old) version of publican that i'll uninstall first.  but once
that's done, then what?  so i don't do mysterious damage to my
packaging database.  thanks.

rday

-- 

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Robert P. J. Day                               Waterloo, Ontario, CANADA

            Linux Consulting, Training and Kernel Pedantry.

Web page:                                          http://crashcourse.ca
Twitter:                                       http://twitter.com/rpjday
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