I've been using Red Hat since 1999 and Fedora Core since the start. OpenSSL is always a problem because Red Hat has a problem---For example, Fedora Core 5. The libraries are missing because they have not been linked properly. To link properly, you have to use ldconfig, and a lot of the rpms forget to do it. It's so bad that I always avoid rpms if possible and go for the source. What I did with OpenSSL was: ./configure --prefix=(where you want it). I always do --prefix so that at least I know where it is. Second, Perl is usually set up shared---so use --enable-shared. Third, --with-threads---again, Perl is usually threaded on Fedora. Fourth, and most important, --with-gnu-ld. Run make, make check, make install. After make install, (it's absolutely necessary to do this), run /sbin/ldconfig /usr/local/lib. The default location for libs is uasually /usr/local/lib, so I usually put the libs there---but the location depends on what your --prefix= is. If your prefix was --prefix=/usr/bin, then /sbin/ldconfig /usr/bin/lib. If you don't have threads or shared, then leave --enable-shared and --with-threads out. I hope this helps...