system returns the exit status of the external program, which is not what you are after. To capture the output of the external proram, there are a few options.

The simplest is to use backticks, for example:

chomp(my $hostname = `/bin/hostname`);
# Note that the chomp is necessary to remove the trailing newline
[download]

Another option is to open a piped filehandle, eg:

my $cmd = '/bin/hostname';
open (IN, "$cmd|");
chomp(my $hostname = <IN>);
[download]

But neither of the above methods are portable. So as usual, CPAN is your friend. Take a look at Sys::Hostname.

Cheers,
Darren :)