Hi,
There is a Synology application called Notestation that is available on their website only as a .deb file. It’s also available in the Arch AUR, but not on Flatpak and not in Tumbleweed repo.
How would I possibly get this application on Tumbleweed? If there is a way, please lead me in the right direction.
@Boogieman extract the deb file, extract the data.tar.gz and run the app in there to test…
Hey, here is another way:
# First, prepare your system:
#
# sudo zypper install ruby-devel gcc make rpm-build libffi-devel
# sudo gem install --no-document fpm
#
# sudo rm *.deb *.rpm 2> /dev/null
wget -c https://global.download.synology.com/download/Utility/NoteStationClient/2.2.4-703/Ubuntu/x86_64/synology-note-station-client-2.2.4-703-linux-x64.deb
sudo fpm --no-depends -s deb -t rpm synology-note-station-client-2.2.4-703-linux-x64.deb
sudo zypper install synology-note-station-client*.rpm
If you don’t mind working the terminal, you could use distrobox to create a ubuntu container, install the app in there and then export it to your suse installation.
sudo zypper in -y distrobox
distrobox create -i ubuntu -n synology
distrobox enter synology
apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install /path/to/your/deb-file.deb
distrobox-export --app yourappyouwanttoexport
You could use alien to convert from deb to rpm … however, there may be dependencies that TW doesn’t offer when attempting to install.
Alien is broken beyond recognition and got removed from most distributions as it is unmaintained since 2013 and can no longer be used….
Even Distribution maintainers where not able to fix this broken piece of software…
There are home repos with alien. But home repos should only be used by experienced users.
Last Update: 2016-10-16
https://software.opensuse.org/package/alien
Available from Experimental repos, but yes, not recommended.
I appreciate all the responses.
It seems like there isn’t a very reliable or easy solution to this. The alien software sounded nice, but if it’s not recommended, then I won’t bother.
How reliable is the distrobox method mentioned by @xm3t4l ?
Distrobox is very reliable - it uses docker container technology to create a Debian system. For applications that don’t require a kernel component, it’s a very reliable way to handle this type of thing.
I cannot guarantee that it will work well for you, but distrobox kind of was created for situations like this and people have been using it to, for example, create an arch container on their ubuntu installation to install obs studio into with the proprietary amd drivers, so they can game on the open source mesa drivers but use the AMF encoder in obs, which only the proprietary drivers offer.
There would be a slight delay when opening the app after reboot, because distrobox would first need to start the container it was installed in, but it’s not really noticeable otherwise.
So how does the extraction to the SUSE installation part work? Once that is done, does that mean distrobox isn’t needed further?
The app will be shown in whatever desktop environment you use in the same way that any other app is shown, with an icon and all of that. Distrobox will be needed for as long as you need the app. Maybe calling it “exporting” isn’t exactly the right term (but that’s on the devs), I think “linking” would be a better term to use. The app does not leave the distrobox container, so distrobox cannot be removed without also removing the app. But you don’t need to interact with distrobox after you exported your application, it will just be sitting in the background.
That makes more sense now. Thanks for explaining it.
Will Distrobox hog up a lot of resources when running in the background? That’s probably my biggest concern.
No, it won’t.
Distro box is a tool made in heaven 
I’m interested on this thread because I’d also install a .dep packet on Leap 15.4 and I have maybe not understood, how does distrobox work.
I can’t find it in official Repos for Leap 15.4 → does it only run on Tumbleweed or Ubuntu and NOT on Leap?
Distrobox is available in official openSUSE repos from Leap 15.5 onwards. As Leap 15.4 is EOL you should consider an upgrade.
Many thanks!
Maybe I’ll do it on next weekend
BTW, do you know, when does the update support for 15.4 end?
It ended already december 2023.
Really? I know, some sub-repositories as https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/KDE:/Qt5/openSUSE_Leap_15.4 have been suppressed, but just yesterday I’ve got some updates …