Little did you know, but when you “found a .gz file and promptly downloaded it ...” you actually slipped-up.

Even though the CPAN pages provide a direct download-location for the module source, it is normally not the proper procedure “to download that file in that way.”   (You couldn’t know...)

The essential idea behind CPAN is that, when properly set up, you can tell it what you want to install, and it will download, test, and install not only the component that you requested, but any and all pre-requisites for it!

This, however, presupposes that you have configured CPAN properly first.   Which, I am quite sure to say, you haven’t done (and of course, had no way to know to do).

Let me now step back and leave it to other Monks to point you to the best sources of info on how to accomplish that step. . .