PPM module installs hang "Generating HTML"

2mths has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

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Re: PPM module installs hang "Generating HTML" by CountZero (Bishop) on May 25, 2007 at 09:53 UTC
The ActiveState distribution of Perl is just like any other distribution and you are not limited to using PPM to install additional modules. As a matter of fact, I only use PPM if everything else fails and normally use the "`perl -MCPAN -e shell`" magic invocation to install modules. This works fine for all modules which do not need to be compiled, i.e. without an XS-component and even for these modules it is trivially simple to install the MinGW environment and get a compiler which will compile these modules as well. Some modules unfortunately refuse to get installed and for those I switch to PPM. A very good introduction on how to do all of this was written by syphilis. CountZero A program should be light and agile, its subroutines connected like a string of pearls. The spirit and intent of the program should be retained throughout. There should be neither too little or too much, neither needless loops nor useless variables, neither lack of structure nor overwhelming rigidity." - The Tao of Programming, 4.1 - Geoffrey James	[reply] [d/l]
Re: PPM module installs hang "Generating HTML" by blazar (Canon) on May 25, 2007 at 12:13 UTC
Whenever I install a module this way the installation hangs at the "Generating HTML" stage. Often I have to leave the machine overnight for this to complete. Well, it doesn't "hang", strictly speaking. It's just slow. Actually I'm astonished, for me it's always been at most a matter of minutes even for very large stuff.	[reply]
Re^2: PPM module installs hang "Generating HTML" by anonymized user 468275 (Curate) on Jun 15, 2016 at 18:42 UTC
So what is the OP supposed to do, wait the rest of his life to see if you are right? Or perhaps use the cpan utility instead! One world, one people	[reply]
Re^3: PPM module installs hang "Generating HTML" by Anonymous Monk on Jun 15, 2016 at 23:07 UTC
So what is the OP supposed to do, wait the rest of his life to see if you are right? Or perhaps use the cpan utility instead! Install/upgrade ExtUtils::MakeMaker, to undo ActieState modifications, so when ppm installs stuff, it doesn't try to update documentation, which is SUPER SLOW on laptops and other "low RPM" hard disks because it reads/writes a thousand files TWICE, for every distribution installed Its not a big deal on 10,000RPM hard disks but on 5400RPM laptop disk it is SLOW Not sure if they still do this nonsense in 2016, its been a while since I stopped using it, see Re: PPM performs uneeded checks, Re^3: How to change compiler options used by cpan ?, Also speaking of dates, that node is from 2007 , something to consider ... Sad news	[reply]
Re: PPM module installs hang "Generating HTML" by thundergnat (Deacon) on May 25, 2007 at 13:57 UTC
FWIW, the old original command line version of ppm is still installed by default with ActivePerl, it's just called ppm-shell now.	[reply]