How To Install alien on CentOS 8

alien is Converter between the rpm, dpkg, stampede slp, and Slackware tgz file formats

Introduction

In this tutorial we learn how to install alien on CentOS 8.

What is alien

Alien is a program that converts between the rpm, dpkg, stampede slp, and Slackware tgz file formats. If you want to use a package from another distribution than the one you have installed on your system, you can use alien to convert it to your preferred package format and install it.

We can use yum or dnf to install alien on CentOS 8. In this tutorial we discuss both methods but you only need to choose one of method to install alien.

Install alien on CentOS 8 Using dnf

Update yum database with dnf using the following command.

sudo dnf makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install alien using dnf by running the following command:

sudo dnf -y install alien

Install alien on CentOS 8 Using yum

Update yum database with yum using the following command.

sudo yum makecache --refresh

The output should look something like this:

CentOS Linux 8 - AppStream                                       43 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - BaseOS                                          65 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - ContinuousRelease                               43 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Extras                                          23 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - FastTrack                                       40 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - HighAvailability                                36 kB/s | 3.9 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - Plus                                            24 kB/s | 1.5 kB     00:00    
CentOS Linux 8 - PowerTools                                      50 kB/s | 4.3 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux Modular 8 - x86_64           13 kB/s | 9.2 kB     00:00    
Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux 8 - x86_64                   24 kB/s | 8.5 kB     00:00    
Metadata cache created.

After updating yum database, We can install alien using yum by running the following command:

sudo yum -y install alien

How To Uninstall alien on CentOS 8

To uninstall only the alien package we can use the following command:

sudo dnf remove alien

alien Package Contents on CentOS 8

/usr/bin/alien
/usr/share/doc/alien
/usr/share/doc/alien/README
/usr/share/doc/alien/changelog
/usr/share/licenses/alien
/usr/share/licenses/alien/GPL
/usr/share/man/man1/alien.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Alien::Package.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Alien::Package::Deb.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Alien::Package::Lsb.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Alien::Package::Pkg.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Alien::Package::Rpm.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Alien::Package::Slp.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Alien::Package::Tgz.3pm.gz
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package.pm
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package/Deb.pm
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package/Lsb.pm
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package/Pkg.pm
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package/Rpm.pm
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package/Slp.pm
/usr/share/perl5/vendor_perl/Alien/Package/Tgz.pm

References

Summary

In this tutorial we learn how to install alien on CentOS 8 using yum and dnf.