How to install and use `UNAFold` / `mfold` RPM package on Ubuntu

2011-02-17T00:00:00+06:00

[Please note that this post has been written quite a while ago. After that, it hasn’t been updated much.]

I failed to install UNAFold/mfold in Ubuntu 10.10 as the supplied binary package was in rpm (RedHat) format.

Ubuntu 10.10 can’t use rpm files to install software directly.

After doing some digging, I found that it is possible to convert rpm files to deb(Debian) format by using another app, named alien.

But alien isn’t installed on Ubuntu by default. So I used the command,

$ sudo apt-get install alien

then check the installation:

$ alien

if it goes okay, now to simply convert the UNAFold package:

$sudo alien ~/Downloads/unafold-3.8-1.i386.rpm

the converted one is named like unafold_3.8-2_i386.deb

Now use this new package for installation

$ sudo dpkg -i unafold_3.8-2_i386.deb

after installation, you should be able to run the *.pl scripts with appropriate input, like:

$ perl /usr/bin/UNAFold.pl ~/s1.seq

I think ... - package