rhubarbguy,

I got a hold of rpm2cpio.pl and got the same error you did.
wget 'http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0210.2/att-0093/01-rpm2cpio'

You might consider getting this little python script that does the same thing.
https://github.com/ruda/rpm2cpio
      Lightweight implementation of rpm2cpio written in Python.
   The script:
     wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ruda/rpm2cpio/master/rpm2cpio.py

I see it includes the xz compression which MIGHT be the issue with the vivaldi 
rpm.
.....

While looking into this, I discovered that the 7zip program can read rpm files!
Cool.

http://manutechie.blogspot.com/2013/08/extract-rpmjartariso-in-windows-7.html

/tmp> 7z l vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.rpm

7-Zip [64] 9.20  Copyright (c) 1999-2010 Igor Pavlov  2010-11-18
p7zip Version 9.20 (locale=en_US.UTF-8,Utf16=on,HugeFiles=on,4 CPUs)

Listing archive: vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.rpm

--
Path = vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.rpm
Type = Rpm
----
Size = 45061100
--
Path = vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.cpio.lzma
Type = xz
Method = LZMA2:26 SHA256

    Date      Time    Attr         Size   Compressed  Name
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------
                     .....    170081620     45061100 
vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.cpio
------------------- ----- ------------ ------------  ------------------------
                              170081620     45061100  1 files, 0 folders

And sure enough, it's an xz file with LZMA and an SHA256 signature.

Reading the python and perl and the shell (from
   http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18787375/how-do-i-extract-the-contents-of-an-rpm
)  are enlightening about the contents of the RPM file.


Fun times... :-)
Ger



On Sat, 9 Apr 2016, rhubarbpieguy at gmail.com wrote:

>
> I run compiled Linux From Scratch so use neither an RPM nor DEB distribution 
> package manager.  I got rpm2cpio.prl for Perl years ago and use it only for 
> OpenOffice RPM files.  I just tried it on an OpenOffice language pack RPM 
> file successfully.
>
> I saw no MD5 values on their site but my md5sum matches yours.  If you can 
> unpack it using rpm2cpio I'll chalk it up to a mystery as I can process the 
> DEB file with ar.
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------
>
> On 04/09/2016 09:44 AM, gerry wrote:
>> Where did you get rpm2cpio from if you don't use a distribution with an rpm 
>> extractor? (rpm2cpio is an rpm extractor)
>> What tool did you use to download the rpm file? (is it corrupted?)
>> 
>> /tmp/v> rpm2cpio ../vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.rpm| cpio -id
>> 332191 blocks
>> /tmp/v> dpkg -l rpm2cpio
>> [snip]
>> ii  rpm2cpio                   4.12.0.1+dfsg1-3bu amd64              tool 
>> to convert RPM package to CPIO archive
>> 
>> /tmp/v> md5sum ../vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.rpm
>> 848368665107cb1670c15639843ad58e ../vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.rpm
>> 
>> 
>> Nope; no problem here extracting it.
>> 
>> HTH,
>> Ger
>> On Sat, 9 Apr 2016, rhubarbpieguy at gmail.com wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> I'm receive "Error: header not recognized" and "cpio: premature end of 
>>> archive" when attempting to process the following using rpm2cpio:
>>> 
>>> https://download.vivaldi.com/stable/vivaldi-stable-1.0.435.42-1.x86_64.rpm 
>>> 
>>> I commonly use rpm2cpio to process rpm files and have had the issue with 
>>> all Vivaldi's betas.  I see nothing about such a problem on their site so 
>>> assume it's unique to rpm2cpio.  I don't use a distribution with an rpm 
>>> extractor.
>>> 
>>> Can others successfully process the file?
>>>