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

Our IBM p series running AIX 5.1 came with version 5.6.0 and was working fine, installed in /usr/opt.
We wanted to use NET::ftp so we got an rpm package from IBM's site for 5.8.0 and tried to install using rpm -ivh iforgetthename.rpm.
That effort tried to install in /opt/freeware and the /opt filesystem ran out of space.
So we added more space to /opt and tried again, this time completed with no errors.
We changed four links in /usr/bin to point to /opt/freeware/ etc. instead of /usr/opt/perl5.
However perl will not run now, getting the following:

/home/twhite =>perl '-V:install.*'
Goto undefined subroutine &Exporter::heavy_export at /opt/freeware/lib/perl5/5.8 .0/Exporter.pm line 16.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.
/home/twhite =>

Can't find instructions on IBM's site. There is no INSTALL file to read. No README either. Haven't tried calling IBM yet.
Should I get the source from CPAN and compile instead?
Many thanks for good advise.

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: install 5.8.0 on AIX 5.1
by JSchmitz (Canon) on Feb 02, 2004 at 21:44 UTC
    type this:
    perl -MCPAN -e shell
    go thru configuration questions if it's the first time running
    then at the CPAN prompt type
    cpan> install Net::FTP

    you know the P-Series will run linux also = )
[reply]
      Thanks for your reply. I would love to run linux, but our vendor is not that cool.

      I got the following:

      /home/twhite =>perl -MCPAN -e shell
      Goto undefined subroutine &Exporter::heavy_export at /opt/freeware/lib/perl5/5.8 .0/Exporter.pm line 16.
      BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/freeware/lib/perl5/5.8.0/ExtUtils/MM_U nix.pm line 20.
      Compilation failed in require at (eval 1) line 3.
      Compilation failed in require at /opt/freeware/lib/perl5/5.8.0/ExtUtils/MakeMake r.pm line 34.
      Compilation failed in require at /opt/freeware/lib/perl5/5.8.0/CPAN.pm line 22.
      BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /opt/freeware/lib/perl5/5.8.0/CPAN.pm line 22.
      Compilation failed in require. BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.
      /home/twhite =>

      I must have done something really awful in a past life. My karma is bad.

[reply]
Re: install 5.8.0 on AIX 5.1
by elwarren (Priest) on Feb 02, 2004 at 21:58 UTC
    Are you sure you're running the version you expect you are? I'd check your PATH and make sure 5.6 isn't trying to load your 5.8 environment or vis-a-vis.

    For what it's worth, Solaris recommends leaving their stock perl installed if you upgrade your perl. Not sure if any of the AIX administration scripts use perl. Last time I worked on AIX was 4.3.3...
[reply]
Re: install 5.8.0 on AIX 5.1
by bluto (Curate) on Feb 02, 2004 at 22:36 UTC
    On AIX, I build my own version of perl and install it in a location the system doesn't manage (e.g. /usr/local/perl/), and has no symbolic links to. That way I'm guaranteed that some future upgrade of AIX won't magically replace what I install, even if what I'm using is old. Also, I sometimes need features that IBM decides not to put into their build (e.g. 64-bit integers -- not sure if they do that now though).
[reply]
Re: install 5.8.0 on AIX 5.1
by fstat(pipe) (Scribe) on Feb 04, 2004 at 01:22 UTC
    I usually cheat and install a prebuilt binary when the make doesn't work: (AIX PDSLIB at UCLA)
    I know it's not the best solution but I have found that resolving compiler flag and library mismatches can consume lots of time.
[reply]

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