I guess my issue is a bit differnet and applies specifically to the Alien::wxWidgets module. From the cpan prompt I use 'install Alien::wxWidgets' and starts to do it's thing and then asks if I would like to build Wx 2.8.10. If I choose yes it prompts me with a pre-set configuration for Wx Widgets 2.8.10 and one of the settings is shared libraries. This is what I want to disable but I'm not sure how to via the cpan shell.