Newbie trying to install RPM on Linspire 5.0

Hi,

I'm trying to install RPM on Linspire 5.0, so that I can use Alien to convert the OpenOffice Beta 2.0 .rpm installation files to .deb files to run on Linspire. However, when I run Alien I get a message saying "sh: rpm: command not found", which I gather means I need to install RPM. I've downloaded RPM 4.4.1, and extracted it from the tar.gz it arrived in. I took a guess at running the .-configure to set it up, as I couldn't find any installation instructions on the rpm.org website. However, halfway through I get the following message:

Gateway:-tmp-rpm-rpm-4.4.1# .-configure checking for a BSD-compatible install...usr-bin-install -c checking whether build environment is sane... yes checking for gawk... gawk checking whether make sets $(MAKE)... yes checking for g++... no checking for c++... no checking for gpp... no checking for aCC... no checking for CC... no checking for cxx... no checking for cc++... no checking for cl... no checking for FCC... no checking for KCC... no checking for RCC... no checking for xlCr... no checking for xlC... no checking for C++ compiler default output file name... configure: error: C++ compiler cannot create executables See `config.log' for more details. Gateway:-tmp-rpm-rpm-4.4.1#

I can post the contents of 'config.log' if that would help. I'm guessing the above message means I need all the packages that have a 'no' next to them - g++, c++, gpp etc. I've already ended up downloading RPM and Alien just to convert a few installation packages - do I really have to download all these extra packages too? And if so, is there some way I can find out ALL the required packages, and download them in one go?

I should point out that I have had Linux installed for approximately 27 hours now, so I may be on *completely* the wrong track here - please let me know if I am because I'm going mental trying to untangle all this! :)

Thanks, h