So nothing else interferes. In that case, there's not much else left to say but "it's (probably) a bug". :/ Now the question is is it a bug in Perl proper, per se - in which case you should take a look at perldoc perlbug -, or is it an issue with the Perl binary package in Slackware, in which case you'd have to report to Patrick or something. (There doesn't seem to be any anoynmous address @slackware.com for bug reports or such, oddly enough.)