Hello --

I want to install the agent software for a backup application on one of our servers. The package is in rpm format, and I wanted to know the following:

1. Does OpenSuSE 13 support the installation of rpm packages? If so, what is the command syntax or utility that I can use to complete the installation?

2. If the package needs to be converted first, would I use Alien or some other software, and what would be the format that I would need for the package?

Thanks.

rpm -ihv <package>.

Is this rpm intended for your version of OpenSUSE? If so, then do as Keruskerfuerst said. If not, then you might run into dependency issues, and you'd probably be better off installing from source if available (assuming this program is not in the standard repos).

openSUSE IS a rpm based distro
BUT they do things very VERY differently that redhat dose

Most of the time i would NOT use rpm to install software

suse uses "zypper" just like redhat uses "yum"


IF!!!!! and this is a BIG IF!!!

if this unknown rpm IS !!! for the current opensuse 13.2

it should be in a software repo

-- install the repo

if not and this is something like LibreOffice that is self contained and OS independent

rpm or zypper can be used


if not it will not work

All OpenSUSE distributions are RPM based: OpenSUSE 13 supports the installation of RPM packages (no package conversion is necessary). Personally, I have always found a GUI extension to RPM to be indispensable. For OpenSUSE, the one I use is smart (http://labix.org/smart). Amongst other things, smart will show you exactly what the package requires, what it conflicts with and whether you have everything required and anything installed that would cause conflicts. OpenSUSE does not come with smart installed. Here's how to install smart on your OpenSUSE 13 system:

Download smart-1.4.1-1.5.x86_64.rpm and smart-gui-gtk-1.4.1-1.5.x86_64.rpm.

Find the gpg key file for gpg key 5E29A324 96A17FFC and run it through kgpg to clean it up for RPM.

As root, in a terminal window