Just a WAG, try -Dusesocks on the Configure line. (Please restart with a freshly unpacked perl-5.8.2.) Also, checking perl -V:config_args for your current perl may give a clue.
Comment on Re: Upgrade help needed moving from 5.6.1 to 5.8.2
FYI,
I back reved to 5.8.0 and have had no problems.
Since I need to test ivs-milter which requires at least 5.8.0, I'll worry about getting to 5.8.2 later.
Thanks for all your help to everyone who posted suggestions.
Mike
I'd strongly encourage you to report your problems with perlbug. 5.8.3 will be coming out in January; it would be nice if whatever is going wrong gets fixed, especially since it seems to have been introduced in 5.8.1 or 5.8.2.