But on startup, perl is doing something with hashes i presume. Having no working random number generator is a big problem with hashes. Without it, there is a big problem with Denial of Service attacks. A simple use CGI; my $q = CGI->new; or using any other kind of hashes with user-supplied content can be a problem.

So, if getting random numbers doesn't work, it is much better for perl to fail at startup than to fail silently and expose the system to all kinds of security problems.