"Sometimes, a utility or an application that you want to install is impossible to find in the format of your distribution. Alien is a utility that can convert one package type into another.It can get you out of a fix when you can't find a package for your distribution, and it is also useful for package maintainers who want to distribute packages for distributions that they don't run. It can work with Slackware, Debian and RPM packages as input and output types.
"It's surprising how much stuff you tend to come across that is stuck in a single package format. Printer drivers are an example of software that is often abandoned without sourcecode."
