installing RPM's

[Sasha Tsykin]

Try alien -d [RPM package].rpm and then, dpkg -i [RPM package].deb.

But why did you want to do that, a better alternative is to compile from 
source using checkinstall. To do this first type:

sudo apt-get install checkinstall

Then download the source package, decompress it and type:

./configure --prefix=/usr
make
sudo checkinstall

and press enter every time it asks you something until you reach the 
end. Most of the time, this will creat an installable package. 
Sometimes, you need to do something extra, but this is rare.

This is almost always superior because convertinf from rpm to deb breaks 
the symlinks in a package, meaning that it might not work properly when 
installed without some serious repair work.

If you aren't so fussed about binary packages,then just use the 
./configure make sudo make install sequence. The package will work 
better, and it will be less work on your part.