I can't install alien (and therefore no RPM files)
 

Hello. I am new to Linux, and just installed Debian 4.0 release 3. I have several old machines lying around, and Linux was the only OS that would allow me to do supercomputing for free. I downloaded the latest Openmosix kernel patch which is a beta release for the 2.6.15 kernel. The problem is that it is a RPM file, so I can not install it. I tried to install alien to convert, but came up with the error that RPM package 2.4.4-2, which is an alien dependant, was not installed or included. The machine can not get online right now. Any help is greatly appreciated.

How did you try to install alien? Did you use apt-get, Synaptic or aptitude? The debian-dev's recommend the latter... You can search and download individual packages from http://www.debian.org/distrib/packages but using aptitude is a better solution.

I used apt-get, but the message I got was that it was not a valid package. I then went and downloaded a version from some website. It was a deb package, so I tried to use dpkg to install it.

You will need to install the rpm deb package (you can search for it on debian.org) for alien to work.

Note: A kernel patch package might not work with alien due to changes made to the kernel by each linux distribution. Try to find and install the patches with vanilla sources.

EDIT: seems I was beaten to the post... What happens when you try to install rpm with dpkg?

I tried using dpkg directly. It gives me the message that the package is not in the Debian format. Then it prints error and and exits the thread. I tried to install alien again to see the exact message. There is another dependancy I missed earlier called debhelper. I ran apt-get install debhelper. I get the error message saying there are unmet dependencies
alein: depends: rpm (>=2.4.4-2) but is not installable
debhelper: depends: html2text but is not going to be installed
try running apt-get -f install with no packages
I will try it, and also find the missing packages. I have not installed webserver yet, so that could be my missing html library. I was having a little install trouble which turned out to be not enough disk space. I now have a larger drive to put webserver on.

post your /etc/apt/sources.list and the output of apt-cache policy rpm

* html2text has nothing to do with installing a web server
* I meant, what happens when you try to install the rpm*.deb package you downloaded from debian.org

I ran /etc/apt/sources.list and get a message saying "permission denied." I am loged on as the root user, so I don't know how to get around this. I am not use to a command line enviroment, so if there is some trick I don't know, please let me know. I got html2text to install. I also went to install the rpm package, and it can not find any of its dependences. I think some of them should already be installed such as the C assembler. I guess I have to just download all of the dependences?

I am using a pure-vinillia kernel. I was using a HOW-To, but ran into problems when the package the How to uses is a tarball and mine is not. I don't know how the how-to got a tarball. I check the releases. All Openmosix kernels are RPM. The other how-to suggested alien.

Do you have a graphical environment available? If you do, it's easy. If you don't, it's also easy, once told ;)

First of all, you can't "run" /etc/apt/sources.list. It's just a configuration file for apt. And as (nearly) all things Linux, it's a text file. Read it with the cat command and if it's too large (and it is, to fit on a single screen) use a 'pipe' to chop it in managable pieces.The less command lets you read one page at a time. Use the arrow keys to scroll up and down and quit with q.

Learn more commands here: http://www.ss64.com/bash/

If you want to edit a file, use nano. This is an editor suited for novices (I'm still using it, nice and handy), opposed to the more traditional editors Vi(m) and Emacs.Again, use the arrow keys to get the cursor at the right spot. Note: at the bottom are the commands to control nano (that's why it's so usefull for newbees) and the ^ means: press and hold the left Ctrl-key, then press the additional key.

I am using the KDE desktop, but have been using a terminal window because all of the documentation I have been reading uses command lines. Sorry about the 'run' error. The only command lines I have worked with are MSDOS to run programs outside of windows. Here is a copy of my sources.list

#
#deb cdrom: [Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - offical i386 CD
Binary - 1 20080217 - 11:50]/ etch contrib main

deb cdrom: [Debian GNU/Linux 4.0 r3 _Etch_ - offical i386 CD
Binary - 1 20080217 - 11:50]/ etch contrib main

#Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify:
#deb http://security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib
#Line commented out by installer because it failed to verify
#deb-src http:// security.debian.org/ etch/updates main contrib

No need to apologize, everyone makes mistakes (yes, me included :p)

Well, first thing to do is to comment out the cdrom entry. Better yet, remove the 2nd entry altogether, it's double anyway. Next, remove the # signs in front of the other lines starting with 'deb' (except the cdrom entry, ofcourse :p) It should look like this:Save (Ctrl+O) and close (Ctrl+X), then doThis updates your system to the latest stable packages. Once you've done that, install alien again, but this time with aptitude:and accept any dependencies. I think you'll find your original problem solved :)

I ran the update and reset my system. I let it get online (a lot easier than I expected it to be) so it could get the updates it could not get when I installed the OS. I let it sit overnight because it was going to take at least an hour and I wanted to go to bed. I found it rebooted this morning. I then gave it the line of code "aptitude install alien" and recieved this.

dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Reading task descriptions... Done
Building tag database... Done
W: Could not lock the cache file. Opening in read-only mode; any changes you make to the states of packages will NOT be preserved!
E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

I did what it said, and it give me a list of files it was setting up, some of which I recognized as necessities for alien. I tried to install alien again, and came up with this.

No candidate version found for alien
The following packages have been kept back:
alsa-base cpio cupsys cupsys-bsd cupsys-client cupsys-common evolution
evolution-common evolution-plugins gs-esp iceweasel
iceweasel-gnome-support libcairo2 libcupsimage2 libcupsys2 libgnutls13
libkrb53 libmozjs0d libnspr4-0d libnss3-0d libpcre3 libsmbclient
libssl0.9.8 libvorbisenc2 libvorbisfile3 libxslt1.1 libxul-common
libxul0d linux-image-2.6.18-6-686 linux-sound-base mtr-tiny
openssh-client python2.4 python2.4-minimal unzip xserver-xorg-core
xsltproc xulrunner-gnome-support
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 38 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Error!
E: I wasn't able to locate file for the linux-image-2.6.18-6-686 package. This might mean you need to manually fix this package.
E: Couldn't lock list directory..are you root?

I am signed on as the root user for all of this. Easier that way because I don't have to worry about permissions. I am guessing I need to point it to the correct image on debian's site?

Starting to think my copy of apt is not working properly. I just tried to install some other software. The website says to use apt-get to install, but the computer can not find it. Could this be possible?