"Now comes a very long list of questions, which must be answered somehow. In most cases, just hitting return (accepting the default) works."

Given the above statement and the discussion in the CB and via /msg today on the subject of Configure, it may be a good idea (though some may consider it stating the obvious) to suggest that people building perl in from source read and understand the README file, the INSTALL file and any platform specific readme file as a minimal primer to familiarise themselves with the configuration/installation process and associated terminology.

In the grand scheme of things, we're not talking about reading an excessive amount of documentation here. It's also good practice for new users to familiarise themselves with perls style of documentation.

The README file shows an example installation, explaining calling Configure with the -des flag to accept the default values, along with an an installation prefix:

INSTALLATION

============

If you're using a relatively modern operating system and want to install this version of Perl locally, run the following commands:

./Configure -des -Dprefix=$HOME/localperl
  make test
  make install
[download]

The INSTALL file elaborates on this in the Run Configure section, explains how to pass exactly the configuration parameters you want, while accepting the defaults for other things and how to accept defaults after any point of an interactive configure run. That said, you may not know you're happy to skip any of these options, until you've been through the process at least once ;)

Cheers