CPAN upgrade reports failure due to "make NO isa perl"

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

While trying to run a CPAN upgrade command, several modules fail with the error "make NO isa perl". Apparently they are all part of DAPM/perl-5.10.1.tar.gz and I am running Perl version 5.10.0.

A Google search didn't come up with anything useful, but presumably a forced install is not going to get me anywhere, so should I just ignore the non-upgradable modules and wait for the next release of Perl for my current distibutuon (Debian lenny)?

Another alternative, of course, is to do a local Perl upgrade, but since I'm not actually having any problems, it's currently just an annoyance that the CPAN upgrade fails so badly and I'm not sure I can be bothered!

Suggestions?

Of course, my main complaint is that the message "make NO isa perl" doesn't seem to be documented anywhere a Google search can find!

Comment on CPAN upgrade reports failure due to "make NO isa perl"

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Re: CPAN upgrade reports failure due to "make NO isa perl" by Burak (Chaplain) on Apr 11, 2010 at 23:57 UTC
You can force install it from cpan I believe, but it might be better not to upgrade system perl blindly as the os vendors might use some unknown black magic while building their perls. If you desperately need a newer version of a Core-only module, install a new local perl instead. But you can just ignore the message from cpan (I do).	[reply]
Re: CPAN upgrade reports failure due to "make NO isa perl" by actualize (Monk) on Apr 12, 2010 at 08:47 UTC
Go into .cpan/build/<module_name>/t/ for the module that is failing. Take a look at the test that is complaining and see if you can't figure out what it is trying to accomplish. Sometimes tests fail because they are badly written. In this case if you look at the test and find that it's broken, then you can ignore it or see how you can make it work. However, you may find that there is a dependency. For example, sometimes there is a non-perl binary that is required for a test to pass. Follow the tests to the source of the problem. You might learn something new. http://actualeyes.blogspot.com/ -Actualeyes	[reply]
Re: CPAN upgrade reports failure due to "make NO isa perl" by ikegami (Patriarch) on Apr 12, 2010 at 15:21 UTC
Apparently they are all part of DAPM/perl-5.10.1.tar.gz and I am running Perl version 5.10.0. To do the required action would require upgrading Perl itself as the modules in question only come with Perl.	[reply]