Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl?

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

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Re: Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl? by Tux (Canon) on Dec 17, 2012 at 17:59 UTC
OpenSUSE 12.2 comes with perl-5.16.0. But if you want to play with perl, and want to install new modules, maybe you should look into perlbrew and use a non-system perl - on whatever Linux distro you like! Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn	[reply]
Re: Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl? by Ravenhall (Beadle) on Dec 17, 2012 at 17:51 UTC
I would go with Ubuntu in that case. Ubuntu is based on Debian, and apt-get is far more pleasant than RPM to work with. Yum makes RedHat/CentOS bearable though. Also, read up on (and use) perlbrew. It is a beautiful thing.	[reply]
Re: Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl? by blue_cowdawg (Monsignor) on Dec 17, 2012 at 19:02 UTC
Flavor of Linux is inconsequential to learning Perl. So long as it is Perl5 you should be good to go. That said, my favorite flavor of the week is Linux Mint. I like the fact that things just work under Mint. Mint is a Debian descendant like Ubuntu is. If I had my personal laptop handy I'd tell you the version running on it, but on my desktop which runs straight up Debian runs 5.10.1 Perl. My laptop runs a much newer version of Mint so I cannot imagine the Perl is going to be of an earlier version. My laptop is Minty Fresh! :-) Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional Peter -at- Berghold -dot- Net; AOL IM redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg	[reply]
Re^2: Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl? by Anonymous Monk on Dec 18, 2012 at 10:58 UTC
I concur. You should be fine learning the language on a twelve-year-old installation of Perl 5.6. The basics really haven't changed that much since. (However, if you need non-core modules in your learning, you might have a bit more trouble there. You ought to go for at least 5.8 or 5.10.1 then)	[reply]
Re: Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl? by zentara (Cardinal) on Dec 17, 2012 at 22:18 UTC
Slackware is still the best for adherence to the old unix style. It dosn't hold your hand for you, like Ubuntu. Ubuntu is heading for the HandHeld market, so their desktop is cumbersome for someone used to a full featured desktop. I also note that Ubuntu's package manager Perl module support is a total mess of use of split module names. If you go with Ubuntu, you would be best to install all Perl manually. Ubuntu is easy to install and get help with, whereas Slackware requires you to figure it out on your own. FWIW, I also like Linux From Scratch and Gentoo , mostly because they have excellent docs for installing various system components. I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. Old Perl Programmer Haiku ................... flash japh	[reply]
Re: Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl? by thomas895 (Deacon) on Dec 18, 2012 at 07:02 UTC
You can use any Linux distribution. I much prefer openSUSE, but that's entirely personal preference. You might be restricted in the future by a computer at $work. So my advice and main point of this advice: Don't rely on a particular system Perl version. What I have done is doing exactly this, but you may want to try replacing the "5.16.2" with another version number. In doing so, you can avoid having to deal with incomplete system Perls. And, when you file a bug report for a Perl issue, you can be sure that it is not a vendor issue. ~Thomas~ "Excuse me for butting in, but I'm interrupt-driven..."	[reply]
Re: Which is the recommended flavor of Linux to learn perl? by jmlynesjr (Deacon) on Dec 18, 2012 at 03:20 UTC
I am on Ubuntu 10.10 with Citrus Perl 5.16.1. It was an easy install. Linux Mint 13 will be my next upgrade. James There's never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it over...	[reply]