In my office, I am using ubuntu linux. But one particular piece of software developed by our company was available in msi and rpm formats. msi is microsoft installer available for windows. For linux, rpm can be used. I don't know how to install rpm files in ubuntu. After searching in web and doing some trials, I found the following steps were helpful.
1) First install Alien. This is the definition of Alien from ubuntu site. Alien converts an RPM package file into a Debian package file or Alien can install an RPM file directly.
2) Then if the rpm is for 32 bit, you will have little bit tough time. The following steps are one way to solve this issue.
i386-32 bit rpm install on amd64 bit ubuntu (different architecture and different processing machines)
2a) To install 32 bit apps on 64 bit ubuntu, we need to have installed "ia32-libs". The original source is here.
2b) Then we need to convert the rpm to tgz (tar.gz) format. Straightforward conversion from rpm to deb format can cause issues if the package was meant for i386 and you are trying to install in amd64 bit. It will say architecture is incompatible like "<filename.rpm> is for architecture i386 ; the package cannot be built on this system". This is because the package is built for i386 but we are trying to install in amd 64 bit. To overcome this, we need to first perform the conversion from rpm to tgz.
sudo alien --to-tgz <file name.rpm>
2c) The above step gives us tgz file. This can be then converted to deb format by using alien command again.
sudo alien --to-deb <filename.tgz>
Then the usual procedure to install deb can be used. That is use "dpkg -i <file name.deb>.
References:
