If the libraries do not get found at the 'perl Makefile.PL' stage then MakeMaker doesn't include them in the generated build command. (If they can't be found then including them in the command is only going to produce a "no such file" fatal error.)

Hm. But at least I'd know what it was looking for, could go look for them, tweak the LIB path in the environment and re-run the make.

That's a far easier process than trying to a) figure out what libraries I should be looking for and then b) work out how to modify makefile.pl to have it either look in the right places or add the appropriate libpath, then c) re-gen the makefile, then d) see if it worked....

I just don't get the philosophy behind EU::MM. It turns the whole easy things easy, hard things possible upside down. Not so much OO, more like spagetti hoops :(