I’m sorry if this is a dumb question. I am a complete beginner. I am trying to get away from Windows and I’ve installed Fedora 41 Workstation on my laptop. Generally I’m getting on ok but there’s one app I must have but they only provide .deb files. (the app is called OSCAR, which is for reading data from CPAP machines).
I’ve googled this subject but to be honest, it’s all waaaay over my head.
If this is even possible, can someone please explain it step-by-step.
Hello! You cannot install .deb files on a Fedora system, this format is designed for Debian/Ubuntu systems. Fedora systems use .rpm format. What I would recommend you is using Flatpaks instead, which are supported on almost any modern Linux distro. To install your app via Flatpak, open the app store of your DE (GNOME Software if you are on Gnome, for example) and make sure that Flathub repo is enabled (on Gnome software, click the menu icon, repositories and make sure flathub is enabled). Then in the same app type your app name in the search box, click on it and hit install.
There is an app called “bottles” it can emulate windows programs. I just installed oscar 64bit version for windows on it and it seems that it is runnig.
I ran into the same issue with Oscar and as the other user said it is available on Flathub as a Flatpak. I’ve been running it for a long time and it works great. The only issue I found is that when I tried to use the built in command to take a screenshot it didn’t work, so I just used the Fedora built in screenshot app instead. I suspect a permission issue but haven’t found anything yet.
Thank you so much for the replies. I actually feel so stupid for not finding it in the software centre. The OSCAR website has a wiki about installing on rpm system but I didn’t have a clue what it all meant. I assumed as there was an instruction page there, then it wouldn’t be in the software centre. So, many thanks to all who replied. I do find this all very confusing after windows but I don’t want to throw in the towel just yet.
Thank you for your suggestion. I’ve had a look at virtualbox and boxes but the biggest problem for me is I don’t have a licence for windows, plus my laptop struggled when I tried ubuntu in virtualbox in Windows 11. It sounded like it was going to take off and got extremely hot. (it’s a surface laptop go 2, i5, 8gb. so not the most powerful pc by any means). I’ll look into bottles though so thank you. Thanks to other replies on here I’ve now installed OSCAR from the software centre, but I also used to use a writing app called Scrivener, so I’ll try that in bottles.
Great that you’ve got the flatpak version working, but further down on the OSCAR wiki page it refers to an “unofficial repository with Fedora and CentOS/RHEL packages of OSCAR at Fedora Copr”, and links to this webpage - johanh/oscar Copr
This rpm of OSCAR can be installed by entering the following two commands in the terminal: sudo dnf copr enable johanh/oscar and then sudo dnf install oscar
If you’re happy wih the Flatpak version then by all means carry on using it.
This is taking longer than It should, You should use “alien” install it via sudo dnf install alien. You can use alien --help or search about how to use it online since I forgot. If you couldn’t figure it out. Coma back here and I will do it for you. Its meant to make .deb files installable on fedora or any redhat system
It has been quite some time since I successfully used alien to convert a deb to an rpm.
There are library differences that make it almost impossible for most apps to be converted and successfully installed and operated.