What to do when no RPM is available but a DEB is available?

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21

I forgot to include this image in the last post of qalculate-kde running on a 64-bit openSUSE-11.2 with KDE-4.3.4:
http://thumbnails24.imagebam.com/6140/15b60061399885.gif](ImageBam)

22

Did you get this message from alien?

# alien --scripts --to-rpm qalculate-kde_0.9.6-3+b1_amd64.deb
tar: Record size = 8 blocks
qalculate-kde-0.9.6-4.x86_64.rpm generated
find: `qalculate-kde-0.9.6': No such file or directory

I’m not sure if that last line means there was an error.

23

I sent the following email to the qalculate mailing list:

Hi - I’m trying to run qalculate-kde-0.9.6-4.x86_64 on openSUSE 11.2.

The way I did it was to use alien like so:

alien --scripts --to-rpm qalculate-kde_0.9.6-3+b1_amd64.deb

tar: Record size = 8 blocks
qalculate-kde-0.9.6-4.x86_64.rpm generated
find: `qalculate-kde-0.9.6’: No such file or directory

I then installed the rpm as so:

zypper in qalculate-kde-0.9.6-4.x86_64.rpm

However, when I start qalculate, I get a dialog that says:
“failed to load global definitions”

I can dismiss the dialog and the program will run. But the Functions menu is wacky! Something’s wrong somewhere…

Maybe one of the qalculate devs or maintainers will package it for openSUSE.

24

I do not recall that.

Rather I recall it complaining that I had a qalculate-kde-0.9.6 directory (which I did - I created that when I took a look at the tarball) and hence “alien” would not create the rpm. So I removed the qalculate-kde-0.9.6 directory, I tried “alien” again, and it worked.

Does the rpm work? Note prior to running “alien” I had installed:

  • libqalculate4-0.9.6-1.1.x86_64
  • qalculate-0.9.6-1.1.x86_64
  • kde4-plasmoid-qalculate-0.7.2-1.6.x86_64

I do not know if that made a difference.

25

IMHO if you want this to happen, then YOU need to be politely proactive.

You need to submit a request on either the Packman mailing list, or on openFATE, or since its a KDE app, on the openSUSE KDE mailing list.

26

oldcpu wrote:

>
> oldcpu;2094030 Wrote:
>> That installed the executeable “qalculate-kde” in /usr/bin/
>>
>> I then ran qalculate-kde and it seems to work in KDE-4.3.4.
> I forgot to include this image in the last post of qalculate running on
> a 64-bit openSUSE-11.2 with KDE-4.3.4:
> ‘[image: http://thumbnails24.imagebam.com/6140/15b60061399885.gif]’
> (http://www.imagebam.com/image/15b60061399885)
>
>
Off topic
The pressure shown in the image looks to be in error.
I would have expected c1000hPa not 500Pa

27

also Off topic …

Interesting. …

I never noticed that. In fact, I don’t know enough about those units to comment on the absolute value in Pa. My limited exprience with monitoring humidity and pressure was back during my watchkeeping days as Officer of the Watch when I was in the Navy (well over 3 decades ago). Back then all the units were in “bars” or “millibars” (and my memory after 3 decades fails me as to the exact details).

The key thing we looked for then was not so much the absolute value, but rather a rapid change in the relative value. In fact a sudden drop in relative pressure typically meant an immediate call to the Captain and to the Navigating Officer (who was also our Meteorlogical officer) on our warship.

28

Thanks for the extra info. I’ll try some of those things.

If you feel like checking it, you could also delete your rpm and just run alien again and check the message. (Purely optional, of course! You’ve already offered more help than I expected!) I’ve run alien several times. For example, I tried creating the directory in advance and got the same complaint you got.

How is your Functions menu? Is it formatted heirarchically and does it look like a normal drop down menu? Mine isn’t/doesn’t.