perl configuration problem

danmcb has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I have an odd problem in teh configuration of my ubuntu system that seems to stem from a perl configuration issue. It is kind of basic but I don't find any clues by google and so on.

When I try to run tools like debconf, I get :

Can't locate Debconf/Db.pm in @INC ... and the listing of @INC, which is all dirs under /usr/local/lib/perl5

By searching, I see that this module is there - it's under /usr/share/perl5

Now I do recall that a long while back, I built perl from scratch. I guess that I screwed some of the configuration up? What do I do to reinstall the missing stuff? Do I have to recompile? I've tried "cpan Debconf/Db" but it doesn't actually seem to be a CPAN module. Can I somehow just add /usr/share/perl5 ... into @INC? Where do I even find documentation for this kind of issue?

Comment on perl configuration problem

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Re: perl configuration problem by Corion (Patriarch) on Jun 16, 2007 at 21:31 UTC
I had this problem once and it was because I upgraded the system Perl with a newer version (it was Debian, but I guess that Ubuntu relies on these parts of Debian). The basic moral of the story is, don't mess with the system Perl. Perl offers you to install itself at `/usr/bin/perl` or `/usr/local/bin/perl`, and if you accept that, it will overwrite the Debian version of Perl, which is unfortunately needed for debconf and apt-get. If you're lucky, you can maybe reinstall the Debian Perl package over your Perl, or fiddle with symlinks to make your new Perl see the other Debian-owned Perl modules. In my case, I reinstalled the system and resolved to always compile my own Perl versions to live under `/opt/perl` instead.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re^2: perl configuration problem by danmcb (Monk) on Jun 16, 2007 at 21:45 UTC
wow. thanks. I didn't realise that deb/ubuntu were that sensitive, though it makes sense. I'll see if I can fix it, if not maybe it's maybe time to upgrade to Ubuntu 7.xx ... ouch.	[reply]
Re^3: perl configuration problem by moritz (Cardinal) on Jun 16, 2007 at 22:33 UTC
Upgrading while your system is broken is really not a good idea. Try a `aptitude reinstall perl perl-base perl-modules`. Greetings from the DebConf ;-) Perl 6 in German	[reply] [d/l]
Re^4: perl configuration problem by danmcb (Monk) on Jun 16, 2007 at 22:51 UTC


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