The document HOWTO-ipkg (http://download.intrinsyc.com/supported/os/linux/distribution/i-linux-4.1/i-packages-1.1/src/hello-world/HOWTO-ipkg) gives a short recipe to translate a .deb to .ipk, which can be useful if downloading files from debian ARM.


To mechanically convert a Debian deb file to an ipk file, simply execute
the following commands:

ar x <package>.deb
tar cvzf <package>.ipk ./debian-binary ./data.tar.gz ./control.tar.gz

See also

http://handhelds.org/moin/moin.cgi/BuildingIpkgs
http://www.oesf.org/index.php?title=Pdaxrom:_Create_An_Ipk_Howto


Also, elsewhere there is a tool called mkipks