I actually did install Inline::C using CPAN. During the install, it detected that Perl had been compiled with cc, found cc on my system, and continued with the install. It also ran two test harnesses. The only difference between them that I could detect was in the paths provided in their invocations to the C libraries. The first harness passed, with one test skipped. The second failed completely. Being a glass-half-full type of person, I decided that was good enough. It wasn't.

While following tachyon-II's suggestion, I had to insert the Kubuntu live CD, from which the header files were extracted. So far as I could tell, nothing was downloaded from the 'net during that process.

I do like Ubuntu, but after an install, you're left with something rather more skeletal than was the case with, say, Mandrake.

-Phil