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We all know that Ubuntu is the most popular Linux distro today with plenty of application currently being developed for it. But then I use Fedora and some use other distros but still liked to have the same program from Ubuntu in their systems.

So how can I convert .deb files back to .tar so it can be recompiled for other distros?

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  • This really doesn't have anything to do with Reverse Engineering. Perhaps Super User would be the place you are looking for? Also, so I'm at least being a helpful, a little converter called Alien may be relevant to your interests if you are looking to convert .deb files. Or you can just extract them with "ar".
    – Archenoth
    Commented Mar 21, 2013 at 7:08
  • @Archenoth (and others) If you think the question is off-topic (I agree, by the way), please vote to close it! Click on the “close” button below the question, select “off-topic”, and “Vote to Close”. It's very important, especially during the private beta, that we indicate what we consider on-topic and off-topic.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Mar 21, 2013 at 9:55
  • This question is out of the scope of this website. As @Archenoth has previously noted. Clicking "close" button...
    – jlcanovas
    Commented Mar 21, 2013 at 10:25

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I doubt this is an RE question. deb is a known format.

Also deb is a .ar it just has a specific internal structure you can decompress it with ar. or use undeb if you want to be fancy.

Here is a howto for deb and rpm just for reference

Also note that deb is usually a binary format and you can't really convert it to source.. unless of course it is a source deb! Any installation you do should probably be done into /opt and add the appropriate directories to your path so you don't pollute your installation with untracked binaries.

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