Working with rpm files in ubuntu

Install alien in Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install alien

This will install all the required packages.Now you can start converting your .rpm files to .deb packages.

Available Options for alien

Convert the package.rpm into a package.deb

sudo alien -d package-name.rpm

Convert the package.rpm into a package.deb, and install the generated package.

sudo alien -i package-name.rpm

If you want to keeps alien from changing the version number use the following command

sudo alien -k rpm-package-file.rpm

Example

Suppose we have a avg antivirus avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.rpm file

To convert .rpm to debian

sudo alien -k avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.rpm

Now you should be having avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.deb file

To install .deb file

sudo dpkg -i avg71lms-r30-a0782.i386.deb

If you don't use -k option you should see avg71lms_r30-1_i386.deb file the difference is it will add 1