nihil2 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi...

I'm using Mandrake 9.2, and it came with Perl 5.8.1 preinstalled. I didn't have the need to manually install a module because the installation came pretty complete (GD, Tk, even DBI), till now... i needed to install DBD::InterBase to communicate to a server with this driver.

Downloaded and installed without any issues a local InterBase server to test on... I used CPAN for the module installation and everything went fine, until it came to "make install". Usually the problems come along in the "perl Makefile.pl" part, "make", or with "make test", weird... here's what it gives me: 

mkdir /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i386-linux-thread-multi: File exi
+sts at /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.1/ExtUtils/Install.pm line 127
make: *** [pure_site_install] Error 255

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Now, I know that I don't have DBD::InterBase installed (I've tested this in more than a couple of ways).

I also tried doing the installation manually (downloaded the *.tar.gz, extracted it, etc.) thinking that maybe CPAN didn't have root privileges for the "make install" part, but it came about with the same results... and then, the bomb came on: i tried to install another module (two actually, Xmms control and Astro::Time) with exactly the same result!!! So now I know that something's wrong with my perl installation. I also tried to do CPAN on the ExtUtils::Install thinking that maybe it needs an upgrade, but CPAN says that its up-to-date.

I have googled pretty much the whole day trying to find others that have had the same problem but the page in which their complaints reside is unavailable or unanswered.

What I'm thinking is that maybe i can do a manual "make install", knowing that this part only copies the created files to their rightful place in the system, but i don't have a clue to where to put them.

I am great need of your wisdom.

Nihil

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Re: Problems Installing Modules
by tilly (Archbishop) on May 04, 2004 at 04:17 UTC
    I'd suggest that you look at /usr, /usr/lib, /usr/lib/perl5 etc until you get to /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i386-linux-thread-multi looking for a file which is not a directory which it might try to overwrite. (It may be a messed up symlink.) When you find a possible offender, manually move it out of the way and then try the install again.

    If you get the same error with a different directory, wash, rinse and repeat.

    Then file a bug report with the Mandrake folks.

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Re: Problems Installing Modules
by arden (Curate) on May 04, 2004 at 04:17 UTC
    Have you checked to see if there exists a file at /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i386-linux-thread-multi already? It really looks to me like the error is that it cannot create a directory where a file of the same name already exists.

    While you're at it, have you looked at line 127 of /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.1/ExtUtils/Install.pm to see if it looks goofy in any way?

    Finally, what happens if you try to do a forced install via CPAN? I'm with you in that I'd really like to know why the normal install fails before I try to force anything, but it is an option.

    - - arden.

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      You're totally right... I feel so stupid, because i was checking in: 

      /usr/lib/perl5/5.8.1

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      in which it does appear a folder called i386-multi.. etc., but not in: 

      /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1

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      in which it appears a file called the same way, exactly as you said. I think you guys just found a bug in Perl in Mandrake 9.2.

      I just finished installing DBD::InterBase manually and works beautifully. THANKS A LOT!!!. =)

      Nihil

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Re: Problems Installing Modules
by Roger (Parson) on May 04, 2004 at 06:24 UTC
    Did you check the permission? /usr/lib usually is writable only to the ROOT user. I normally do 'sudo make install' to install perl modules, assuming that you have 'sudo' access.

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