some one graciously yesterday told me how to convert files to deb format manually since alien wasnt working properly stupid as i am i manualy created a contol file by right clicking in the window create new file text document named it control changed its properties to no file extension chod 777 chown root and it still didnt work is there a special way to create this file??

What you are trying to do is a very complex process. You should never *need* to make a .deb package by hand, unless you are a package maintainer. (Even then, there are automated tools to help with the process). If you are trying to create a package from scratch, read this: http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/maint-guide/ch-start.en.html If you are trying to convert some other package format like RPM to DEB, then try to fix alien first. Jonathan

I've never had alien fail on me. Maybe the problem is how you are using it. It needs raised priviledges, so you can either use it as root, or install "fakeroot" and then do this: fakeroot alien your.rpm As I say, this has never failed for me.