SUMMARY: Switch from RPM to DEBian Packages

Hi Linux-Managers,

I received replies from Mike Brodbelt, Timothy Webster, 
Torbjorn Pettersson, Jim P Carroll and Sudheesh Krishnankutty.
Thank you very much.

I wanted two Tasks to be done:
Task 1: setting up dpkg / a debian packeged system on
        a RPM based system (like SuSe 7.2) 
Task 2: not having to reinstall all software, but instead
        "read" existing sources of installation into
	the package database.

I learned from Mike, Timothy and Tobjvrn that Task 1 can
be done. 
Task 2 unfortunatly seems to be impossible :-(
Jim and Krishnankutty helped a lot on getting along with 
my existing system.

I received the following ressources:
http://freshrpms.net
  (more on apt for rpm)
from Mike: 
  There's a HOWTO for this at
  http://trilldev.sourceforge.net/files/remotedeb.html, 
  which builds on the information provided in the debian install guide at
  http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch-preparing.en.html#s-linux-upgrade
I also was sent to "debian weekly" and "debianplanet.org".

Right now I am in the processs or reading and preparing - 
I want to make the switch on a machine that already performs 
several tasks. Loosing it during the process would be very
embarassing and pretty costly ...

I will repost upon sucess (that I am pretty confident in).

Regards,

Klaus-Peter Thiessen


The original request was:
On Mon, May 12, 2003 at 12:17:41PM +0200, Klaus-Peter Thiessen wrote:
> 
> I currently have an remote i386 Server on a lease base 
> wich unfortunatly runs SuSE/7.2.
> 
> "Unfortunatly" because 
> 1.) I am used to Debian, updating and maintaining with 
>     dpkg and apt-get and (therefore)
> 2.) I am extremely unfamiliar with SuSe and rpm, 
>     especially for remote maintainance.
> 
> I managed to have apt-get for rpm running and also found
> a source (or more) for package distribution. 
> I also heard that SuSe is supposed to have some pretty 
> tools for administration but I can't even use yast from 
> the shell as I fail to get some of the keys working. 
> 
> Still the situation is quite disturbing for me - so I 
> wondered if anyone has yet managed to turn the distribution 
> from SuSe (or other rpm based system) to debian packages?
> How would I install a dpkg and have it recognized all
> installed software without reinstalling the entire system?
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