upgrading to active state perl, any issues? (on HP-UX PA-RISC)

[Masaki Birchmier]

I installed HP's perl v5.8.2 (D.5.8.2.A) on a test machine and saw that it is an ActiveState version. The release notes has extensive list of imcompatibilities. From my understanding Active State perl has its roots from windows. Any thoughts on upgrading an HP-UX PA-RISC system to this version of perl?

Also this installation does not work with CPAN module installations/updates. It can't find modules even though they exist within the installed /opt/perl/lib locations.

and yes, I know about https://www.beepz.com/personal/merijn/

Masaki

[harry d brown jr]

Why not just install 5.8.3?

http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Languages/perl-5.8.3/

and I have no clue as to what "ActiveState" means

live free or die
harry

[Uwe Zessin]

It is a software company:
http://www.activestate.com/

[harry d brown jr]

UWE: Yup, just found that out.

They DON'T support HPux, so I say stay with the 5.8.3 depot I directed you to.

live free or die
harry

[H.Merijn Brand (procura · Accepted solution]

The perl's are about the same. ActiveState used to be a company that *only* did the windows build, but the development has merged in between 5.6 and 5.8 (the development track was then 5.7).

ActiveState also hosts the sources for *ALL* builds of perl, so we cannot live without them :)

ActiveState uses ppm, instead of CPAN. On windows, I actually like it, but on *nix, I prefer manual builds. I use CPANPLUS or CPAN only to check for updates, or fetch the right modules.

My site has compressed tar archives, and most of the other binary distributions are in depot format.

If I recall correctly, ActiveState *always* builds threaded perls, on all their ports. I personally do not favour threaded builds, because I have never seen any application *need* it, and to impose a 25% speed penalty just because you like to play with threads is not my kind of system management.

My advice is to choose a build that best fits your needs.
1. Your architecture: don't choose pa-1.1 if you are running on pa-2.0
2. Bitness. Choose 64bit only if you need it
3. Threadedness: Again only if you require threads
4. Features. If you need 64bits or Unicode, go for 5.8.3 or newer, if you only need speed, and none of the shiny new stuff, 5.6.2 is still a good choice
5. Versatality. Easy of perl installation (depots) against freedom of location (.tbz) and module installation (prebuilt - ActiveState probably also has, like me, prebuilt Tk included) or small and lean where you have to install the modules of choice yourself.

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn