Jason,
It sounds like your script did indeed run. The problem is that it looks like you are not running it from "the command line", but from within a GUI environment. As soon as the program completes, the window vanishes. To test my theory, try adding the following line at the end of the script.

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
print "Hello, Jason\n";
my $input = <STDIN>;
[download]

That should leave the screen up long enough to see what is going on. Simply hit enter and it should close. If you will provide more information on the version of Linux and what you are running for a desktop (Gnome perhaps), then some fine monk would be glad to help you.

Chances are you just need to open up a terminal window.

Cheers and welcome to the Monastery - L~R