Thank you for your input - Debian tends to be my "gold standard" for correct packaging, and it seems that most of the Perl community agrees.

To try to clarify, the demo scripts are just that - scripts, and they use config files that the modules will look for on the system (the search path is *fully* configurable). Each script has it's own config file.

In the case of this distro, applications written using the modules will need to load config files and so I think the appropriate location is in /etc/$distname or /usr/local/etc/$distname. System defaults (like the search-path and various default behaviors) are stored in a module generated by Module::Build, but those can be overridden by any application's config.

I'm wondering if I should put the demo configs under an etc directory as well, or should they be sequestered under a /usr/share sort of place. Perhaps I should put them under /usr/share and install into /usr/bin a script that the user could run later that copies the demo configs and scripts from there to /etc?

After packaging it correctly, my goal for this distro is to make it as *easy* as possible for people to use and try out. It's been used in production for years now, but the author always custom-installed it, usually placing things wherever seemed good for that particular instance. Now we both want to see this software with a broader user-base, and my opinion is that a distro *must* install properly, right from CPAN, or 99.9% of users will give up and never look back. "Properly" includes putting things in places that are accessible and expected by the users and won't annoy sysadmins who run a tight ship (ARRRRRR!)