dpkg on redhat

[Hanry Zhou]

I've already has rpm on the redhat(7.2) server, but now I wanted to learn Debian dpkg, and wanted to install it on the server. Is there any conflict between dpkg and rpm on the same box? and also how to install dpkg, and where I can get it?
Thanks,

[Martin P.J. Zinser]

Hi,

see http://packages.debian.org/stable/base/dpkg.html
for the source.

You should be able to use both on your system but do not expect them to "work together", i.e. rpm will not know about packages installed by dpkg and vice versa.

Greetings, Martin

[Mark Grant]

You could actually use "alien" to convert between these two package formats if you want to try and keep the system packages sane.

[dirk dierickx]

very few people are using dpkg directly, but use a 'wrapper' called apt instead. apt is able to use other types of packagees besides .deb (like .rpm).
you can get apt for redhat and toy around with that, it will keep your package database sane, and your knowledge of the apt program will be usable on debian.

http://apt.freshrpms.net/

[Ragu_1]

There is no point in learning how to use dpkg on a running RH box. You can instead install just the base packages of the Debian system on a free partition and learn. Better still, get a copy of Knoppix on a CD. You may have to reboot the Knoppix CD, drop down into text mode and learn. Damn Small Linux is another distro based on Debian, smaller and faster than Knoppix. This article at Freshmeat is a good help http://freshmeat.net/articles/view/196/