Installation Doubts by Beginner

[Steve Grace]

On 06/24/2010 04:57 PM, Daniel Ram wrote:
> Hi all!
>
> I'm trying to install Java in my computer, but when I try to run "rpm"
> command, the system ask me to use alien.
> How can I use alien? I've installed it, but I'm not sure what it is..
> ;-( .. yet! ... The same for Debian (Is Debian a project, isn't?)
>
> P.S.: I have no root password. I put danielram as Administrator, but I'm
> not sure if it is already running as Administrator.
> How can I check it? Do I need system restart? Or how can I use sudo like
> a super user?
>
> See below the message after I've tried rpm command (in red):
>
> danielram at danielram-laptop:~$ ls
> CEGO examples.desktop My GCompris TestCego
> Desktop jre-6u20-linux-i586.rpm Pictures Ubuntu One
> Documents jre-6u20-linux-i586-rpm.bin Public Videos
> electric.log Music Templates
> danielram at danielram-laptop:~$
>
> danielram at danielram-laptop:~$ rpm -iv jre-6u20-linux-i586
> rpm: please use alien to install rpm packages on Debian, if you are
> really sure use --force-debian switch. See README.Debian for more details.
> danielram at danielram-laptop:~$

Daniel:

"rpm" format is used by Red Hat, I believe. Ubuntu and Debian software 
is packaged into "deb" format. "alien" is used to convert "rpm" to "deb" 
but that probably isn't the right approach in this case.

Rather than try to convert the "rpm" version, I'm pretty sure you can 
get what you want directly from the Ubuntu repositories. However, I 
don't use Java, so someone else will need to tell you what package(s) to 
install.

Steve