alien (Software)

Alien is a Unix program that is used to convert different packet formats. Alien is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL, version ≥ 2) as free software. It was originally written by the Debian developer Christoph Lameter. The code to convert RPM format for Debian format comes from a software called Martian (English for Mars - residents ), reminiscent of the name and the Alien (English for foreign, alien, Alien ).

It handles conversion to and from Red Hat's RPM, Debian deb, Stampedes slp, Slackware tgz, and Solaris ' pkg format. Packages can also be installed automatically after the same generation. Also in the packets embedded installation scripts can be converted, but this is error-prone. The format conversion is generally not lossless or can occasionally lead to erroneous packets, so a more detailed examination of packets generated is recommended after each call of alien.