in reply to Is there an easier way to find and install modules on Linux?

I have recently encountered cpanm and cpanp. Do either of them significantly ease installing packages? If not, what advantage do they provide over cpan?
When cpan is broken through misconfiguration or bum update or some such, cpanp or cpanm usually work.
cpanp is more flexible and easier to extend and resulted in about a 100 new modules :)
cpanm is most minimalist in requirements (both memory and modules and index files -- http://cpanmetadb.plackperl.org/ ) and interactivity ...
all three just install modules in pretty much the same way ... all have some bugs somewhere ... all have few features the other doesn't ... these days I mostly use cpanm cause I hate waiting 5min while my slow disk loads the latest index for cpan/cpanp
cpanp has tk frontend (/CPANPLUS::Shell::Tk), there might be a cpan one (vague idea, can't find it), cpanm doesn't :_
cpanm speedup is significant to me
cpanp extensibility is significant to me
cpan is core and this is significant (and why it has been improving even after cpanp/cpanm)
none of cpan/cpanp/cpanm help you install Alien dependencies ... apt-get blah blah blah so all three are on-par with the CPAN drawbacks :)

Now, https://metacpan.org/ provides autocompletion (via jscript) , you start typing, it provides a dropdown list appears ... a Tk frontend could be thrown together pretty quickly for this (https://metacpan.org/about/faq) ... then you check boxes of stuff you'd like to install like you're used to ... then spawn cpanm or apt-get or whatever ...

Also, http://downloads.activestate.com/ActivePerl/releases/ has linux releases .. and there is a ppms for linux too ... never tried it :)

I am facing installing several dozens of packages on these Linux boxes, and am not looking forward to having to type their full names to do so.

Have you heard of bundles or Tasks? You only type-out the modules you want to install once, and then tell cpan/cpanp/cpanm to install MyBundle.pm and it installs all these modules ... :)

  • Comment on Re: Is there an easier way to find and install modules on Linux? (metacpan autocompletion)

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Re^2: Is there an easier way to find and install modules on Linux? (metacpan autocompletion)
by ted.byers (Monk) on Dec 14, 2013 at 16:14 UTC

    Thanks

    I appreciate this. I will take a closer look at cpanp and cpanm, and see if they can make what I need to do easier.

    I have seen bundles, but not 'Tasks'; but never investigated how they're made. Could you enlighten me as to how I can group the modules I routinely use into a bundle? Is there a web page that provides documentation for how to do this?

    Thanks.

    Ted

[reply]
[reply]

      I just found a reference to "The CPAN autobundle". Alas, the page doesn't give a clue as to when it was written. Is autobundle still current; and a viable option? And is what it produces portable across platforms (my mix is Windows 7 w/Activestate perl 5.16.2, OpenSuse12.3 w/ perl 5.16.2, and Ubuntu 12.04 w/ perl 5.14.?)?

      Thanks

      Ted

[reply]

        Yes, the CPAN autobundle functionality is still current and is a somewhat viable option. Autobundle also bundles core modules, which means that you need some cleanup when moving between Perl versions.

[reply]

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