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Re: Can rpm packages from other linux distribution be used on Debian?

On Wed, May 12, 2004 at 05:40:51PM +0800, Rick wrote:


Hello People:
    Our product is base on redhat,I will porting it to Debian,but in this
system,many procedure depend redhat rpms,for example:
glibc-2.3.2-11.9.i386.rpm, perl-5.8.0-88.i386.rpm,etc..
   At the start,I wanted to try install these rpm packages(from redhat) On
debian,but I found that thers is a lot work to do,some rpm packages even can't
be installed on it.(perhaps these rpms packages from redhat can't be used on
debian at all).I think 2 ways to settle this problem,But I am not sure these
ways is doable,and I wish to get some advices about it.these problem are:
	
	1. Use a certain tool to translate these packages(glibc*.rpm..) from redhat
to rpm packages that can be used on debian.Is there such tools exist on
debian?
	2. On Debian,after I install rpm,rpm DB and deb DB exist,Can I make some
mapping bettwen betwwen rpm DB and deb DB? when I run rpm command,the OS will
invoke debian DB.for example:
	# rpm -qv gcc
	package gcc is not installed
	#dpkg -l |grep gcc
	ii  gcc-3.0        3.0.4-7        The GNU C compiler.
	#
this means gcc*rpm isn't installed but gcc*deb is installed on debian. after I
make this mapping,I can use rpm to access deb DB.
	# rpm -qv gcc
	gcc-3.0
	#
if this way is feasible,How to do it?

	I am a new debian user,not too familiar with this OS,	If above ways are
impossible,is thers other ways to attain my purpose?
As someone else mentioned, look at the "alien" Debian package for conversion from .rpm .deb. But that is hardly adequate for reliable, professional software. 

You should consider a more realistic option:
3. Genuinely *port* your software to the Debian platform. While glibc 2.3.2 and perl 5.8 are not available in the current Debian stable release (Woody), it's rather unlikely that your software *needs* those components in those versions - i.e. whether it is more or less a matter of recompiling. But then you know that.
Or even if not this, somehow you're going to need to provide security updates for these libraries your software needs. These packages aren't going to reliably install with alien or rpm unmodified. So if you're going to officially support the port of your software to Debian (which seems to be part of the definition of "port"), you are going to need to distribute these packages to your users yourselves, and distribute security updates of these non-official packages yourselves.
Since you will be doing this anyhow, why not simply maintain these packages as .deb packages in the versions your users will need, in the form of backports [1] for Debian stable (Woody)? 

[1] http://www.backports.org

dircha
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