[18208] in Athena Bugs
linux 8.4.10: perl5.6
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michel J Lambert)
Mon Aug 28 22:31:33 2000
Message-Id: <200008290231.WAA13028@w20-575-27.mit.edu>
To: bugs@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 28 Aug 2000 22:31:25 -0400
From: Michel J Lambert <mlambert@MIT.EDU>
System name: w20-575-27.mit.edu
Type and version: i686 8.4.10
Display type:
Shell: /bin/athena/tcsh
Window manager: /mit/windowmanagers/arch/i386_linux22/bin/icewm
What were you trying to do?
I'm trying to run a Perl/Tk program, and I also require Perl5.6 features.
What's wrong:
Perl5.6, which is the default perl installed on the systems, does not have Tk installed in the site_perl lib directories, so I'm unable to use it. The locker entitled perl5, however, DOES have the Perl/Tk module installed. Unfortunately, my program requires features available only in perl5.6. I cannot adjust my lib paths to point to the perl5 locker's libs, because Tk is a module which has compiled C code which links natively with the perl executable, and I believe that binary-compatibility was broken between perl5.005 and perl5.6, leaving me unable to use perl5..05's Tk module with Perl5.6.
What should have happened:
I should have been able to run a perl/tk program. :) Specifically,
In the mlambert locker....I should have been able to run: rebug/rebug.pl
That program currently works on my Linux machine at home, and while I can run it via X-forwarding over the network, it's incredibly slow. :)
Please describe any relevant documentation references:
Also, I've noticed that the perl5.005 locker also has installed other useful stuff like the LWP, MD5/SHA/Digest, Curses, and Time::HiRes modules, all of which are not installed in the site_perl perl5.6 lib directoes. While I don't need them now, any program that wanted to upgrade from the perl5 locker to the default perl5.6 would be unable to do so if they relied upon these modules.
To fix this, I wouldn't mind if you just created a perl56libs locker, which included all sorts of relevant third party perl5.6 modules. Anyone needing these modules would be required to do a 'add perl56libs', and then a 'use lib qw(/mit/perl56libs);' in their program to tell it to use that. I've read all of the documentation on athena's locker versus hard install stuff, and since this stuff shouldn't be on the main machine with perl5.6, because of rapid bug-fixes within these modules, and because of their unsupported nature of not being standard perl5.6. If you need someone to volunteer to maintain the perl56libs locker, I'll be glad to help out.
