Yo tampoco lo veo una buena idea, alien debería utilizarse sólo en ocasiones aisladas y con paquetes cuya importancia para el sistema sea mínima. Si te fijas en
su página web hay una nota que dice:
Cita:
Iniciado por http://www.kitenet.net/programs/alien/ Alien should not be used to replace important system packages, like sysvinit, shared libraries, or other things that are essential for the functioning of your system. Many of these packages are set up differently by Debian and Red Hat, and packages from the different distributions cannot be used interchangably. In general, if you can't uninstall the package without breaking your system, don't try to replace it with an alien version.
Saludos.