Towards a no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows

A few days ago, Adam Kennedy offered a “vertical metre of beer” for “a Windows Perl installer that works and can install XS modules from CPAN normally, as we might expect from a Linux install”. Stephen Steneker and Carl Franks entered the contest, taking different approaches, the former beating the latter by a short head. So now there are two such distributions which meet Adam’s criteria: CamelPack and VanillaPerl. PXPerl may also soon join their ranks.

Sounds like good news for those living in Win32-land to me.

Comment on Towards a no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows

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Re: Towards a no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows by jdhedden (Deacon) on Jan 26, 2006 at 13:53 UTC
I had previously gone through the struggle of getting ActivePerl, MinGW and nmake to work together to compile XS modules under Windows. Even then, I had to use ExtUtils::FakeConfig to get it to work. I wiped all that out, and gave CamelPack a try. It worked great! Download the setup.exe, and then run it. For the Dev-C++ pack, you can just install the "MinGW compiler system" option if you don't want the full IDE. Then run `cpan` to get it configured. That's it! You now have ActivePerl 5.8.7 that usable with CPAN (as well as PPM)! Hats off to Stephen Steneker for this outstanding contribution to the Perl community. Remember: There's always one more bug.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Towards a no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows by holli (Abbot) on Jan 26, 2006 at 13:47 UTC
I have just quick tested it (CamelPack). Download and Installing works flawlessly and the compilation of Text::CSV_XS works as advertised. DBD::ODBC does not compile. A little flaw: The installer does not note when there is another c compiler present in the system. check your path settings when you get errors, maybe the wrong compiler gets used. holli, /regexed monk/	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Towards a no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows by adrianh (Chancellor) on Jan 26, 2006 at 16:39 UTC
Sounds like good news for those living in Win32-land to me. Damn good news. Wish I knew about this a few weeks back - would have made my life easier :-)	[reply]
Re^2: Towards a no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows by adamk (Chaplain) on Jan 27, 2006 at 04:01 UTC
It didn't exist a few weeks back. The contest was only launched on the 22st, and won on the 25th. :)	[reply]
Re: Towards a no-fuss end-user-level distribution of Perl for Windows by spiritway (Vicar) on Jan 30, 2006 at 00:45 UTC
Sounds like good news for those living in Win32-land to me. I think the shorter spelling is 'h-e-l-l' ;-) Update: Sheesh... someone's a grouch bear, I guess... Ha, ha, only serious...	[reply]