RPM notes
From Noah.org
Extract files from RPM
How to sxtract files from an RPM (useful for source RPMs). Under Ubuntu you will need to install the rpm package. Note that this dumps the contents into the current directory.
rpm2cpio example.src.rpm | cpio -idmv
RPMs on Debian and Ubuntu
Install the alien package. This will allow you to convert a variety of package types into DEB packages. Supports RPM