I'd recommend using an alarm and eval combination to get the desired effect. Here's a sample:

local $SIG{ALRM} = sub { die("TIMED OUT") };
eval {
 alarm(10); #set our alarm for 10 seconds
 @results = `$cmd`;
 alarm(0);
}

if($@ =~ /TIMED OUT/) {
 #do defaults
}
[download]

This should allow you to do the time out without having to do a fork. When the die occurs, you will break out of the eval, and $@ will be set with the error message that you died with from your SIGALRM handler. I believe I picked this trick up out of ORA's Advanced Perl Programming, but I'm not %100 positive.

Update: I double checked in the Advanced Perl Programming book, and there is indeed an example almost identical to what I posted on pages 80-81 (I won't repost their version, because the two are more or less equivalent, they actually used a reference to a named sub in the sighandler vs my anonymous sub.) Just wanted to make sure I gave credit to where I originally had learned this.

cephas