Alien RPM->deb errors (missing GetoptLong, ARCH)

[Mike James <mwjames@magibox.net>]

Hi, everyone--

I'm experiencing two difficulties with using Alien-6.38 to convert *.ppc.rpm
to *.deb packages on my PB3400:

(1) alien fails on launch with a missing perl GetoptLong error

I solved this myself by retrieving the GetoptLong-2.19 module from CPAN and
installing it. I assume this means GetoptLang is missing from perl-base?

(2) an alien ppc.rpm->.deb conversion fails at the following message:

dpkg-gencontrol: error: current build architecture powerpc does not appear in
package's list (ppc)
dh_gencontrol: command returned error code
make: *** [binary-arch] Error 1
alien: Package build failed.

I can't find where the current build architecture is being declared 'powerpc'
so I can change it to match the RPM's 'ppc' architecture.

Can someone suggest a workable solution?


Thanks.

Mike