What's the recommended Perl setup on Apple Mac OS X? (I'm currently using OS X 10.5.) I'd like to be able to use cpanp (or, failing that, cpan) to install modules.

If I build and install my own Perl from source, is it fairly straightforward? (That is, similar to how it builds and installs on GNU/Linux?) Any gotchas I should know about? I'll probably just put it into its own /opt/perl.

Incidentally, I've got Fink installed, and I notice that my @INC looks like this:

@INC contains:
    /sw/lib/perl5
    /sw/lib/perl5/darwin
    /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /System/Library/Perl/5.8.8
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /Library/Perl/5.8.8
    /Library/Perl
    /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /Network/Library/Perl/5.8.8
    /Network/Library/Perl
    /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8/darwin-thread-multi-2level
    /System/Library/Perl/Extras/5.8.8
    /Library/Perl/5.8.6
    /Library/Perl/5.8.1
    .

[download]

but there's no /sw/bin/perl.

So, it seems that the system Perl actually looks in the Fink /sw directory for modules to load -- thus, I can install Perl modules via the Fink apt-get and the system Perl will find them ...

In reply to Customary Perl setup on Apple Mac OS X? by Anonymous Monk

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