[Bypassed] Alien failing to convert RPM to DEB

[usermuser292]

Hi everyone,

I'm a bit of a Linux beginner and this is my first time using Mint, so please be patient if I can't follow everything right away. I'm trying to install SQL Developer on Mint. I had previously gotten it to work on Ubuntu 16.04 with this same procedure and this same file (which I downloaded directly from Oracle), but this time I'm getting an error trying to convert the RPM to a DEB File:

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me@machine ~ $ sudo alien --scripts ~/sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm
Unpacking of '/home/me/sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm' failed at /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm line 168.

I've tried googling this for about two hours now, and am not coming up with any solutions that work. I've installed all of alien's suggested packages, and all the packages that those suggested, but no dice. I also tried the search function fo the forums here without any luck.

Here is line 168 of /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm:

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$this->do("rpm2cpio '".$this->filename."' | (cd $workdir; $decomp cpio --extract --make-directories --no-absolute-filenames --preserve-modification-time) 2>&1") or die "Unpacking of '".$this->filename."' failed";

I definitely have rpm2cpio and cpio installed. Should I edit Rpm.pm and try to print some STDERR at that line or is that a bad idea? I know some Perl, but I'm not sure how dangerous that is at this spot...

Does anybody know how to find out why alien is having trouble at that particular line or how to fix this? Alternatively, I'd be happy for any other method to get this RPM into a DEB that works...

Details of my Machine, the RPM, and Alien installation:

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me@machine ~ $ inxi -S
System:    Host: machine Kernel: 4.10.0-38-generic x86_64 (64 bit) Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.7
           Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia

me@machine ~ $ ls -lhF sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm
-rwxrwxrwx 1 me me 262M May  4  2017 sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm*

me@machine ~ $ dpkg-query -W alien
    alien	8.95
me@machine ~ $ dpkg-query -s alien
    Package: alien
    Status: install ok installed
    Priority: optional
    Section: admin
    Installed-Size: 166
    Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
    Architecture: all
    Version: 8.95
    Depends: debhelper (>= 7), perl, rpm (>= 2.4.4-2), dpkg-dev, make, cpio, rpm2cpio
    Suggests: patch, bzip2, lintian, lzma
    Description: convert and install rpm and other packages
     Alien allows you to convert LSB, Red Hat, Stampede and Slackware Packages
     into Debian packages, which can be installed with dpkg.
     .
     It can also generate packages of any of the other formats.
     .
     This is a tool only suitable for binary packages.
    Original-Maintainer: Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org>
    Homepage: http://kitenet.net/~joey/code/alien/

Cheers,

usermuser292

[JeremyB]

This should help https://askubuntu.com/questions/916088/ ... -developer

[trytip]

your command was wrong. remove the ~/ and try again. this needs
sudo alien --scripts sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm
or
sudo alien --to-deb --scripts *.rpm
sudo dpkg -i filename_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

[usermuser292]

Hi trytip,

thanks for your reply! I'm pretty sure alien is finding the rpm, but to be safe I tried it your way:

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me@machine ~ $ sudo alien --scripts sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm 
Unpacking of 'sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm' failed at /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm line 168.

me@machine ~ $ sudo alien --to-deb --scripts *.rpm
[sudo] password for me: 
Unpacking of 'sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm' failed at /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm line 168.

I even tried running it AS root, instead of just me with root privileged:

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me@machine ~ $ sudo su -
root@machine ~ # cd /home/me/
root@machine me # alien --scripts sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm 
Unpacking of 'sqldeveloper-4.2.0.17.089.1709-1.noarch.rpm' failed at /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm line 168.

The problem here seems to be with alien itself...

[usermuser292]

This should help https://askubuntu.com/questions/916088/ ... -developer

Thanks JeremyB, this worked for me, bypassing the entire need to convert the RPM to DEB.

Thanks a lot!

[Fabrizio65]

Hallo all,
I had the same error trynig to convert rpm to deb ...

failed at /usr/share/perl5/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm line 168

The error was due to file system less space do complete the operation ....

So I extended the filesystem space, and the retype the command so ended without errors

Regards