Hi I recently purchased an oreilly book (learning perl) and would like to really dig in. I do see that perl base is on the n900 by default. I also see via apt-cache search perl (see output below) lots of other perl related stuff. So can I just bulk install these things or will a brute force perl attack on my n900 break apps. Basically I want to have perl as though I had installed it on say a fedora or ubuntu workstation, so I can learn as much as I can. So what should I be installing? help a guy trying to learn programming

Nokia-N900:~# dpkg -l | grep -i perl
ii liblocale-gettext-perl 1.01-17osso2 Using libc functions for internationalization in Perl
ii libpcre3 6.7-1osso1+r1 Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expression Library - runtime files
ii perl-base 5.8.3-3osso13+0m5 The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.


Nokia-N900:~# apt-cache search perl |grep -i perl
perl-base - The Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister.
libpcre3 - Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expression Library - runtime files
libpcrecpp0 - Perl 5 Compatible Regular Expression Library - C++ runtime files
perl - Larry Wall's Practical Extraction and Report Language.
libperl5.8 - Shared Perl library.
perl-modules - Core Perl modules.
liblocale-gettext-perl - Using libc functions for internationalization in Perl
advancedcaching - AGTL, the all-in-one solution for on- and offline geocaching, makes geocaching paperless!
libalien-wxwidgets-perl - Perl module for locating wxWidgets binaries
libnet-ssleay-perl - Perl module for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
libnet-libidn-perl - Perl bindings for GNU Libidn
libwx-perl - interface to wxWidgets cross-platform GUI toolkit
libgv-perl - Perl bindings for graphviz
libhtml-parser-perl - A collection of modules that parse HTML text documents
libcompress-raw-zlib-perl - low-level interface to zlib compression library
libcompress-zlib-perl - Perl module for creation and manipulation of gzip files
libfilter-perl - Perl source filters
libsdl-perl - SDL bindings for the Perl language
libdigest-sha1-perl - NIST SHA-1 message digest algorithm
eperl - Embedded Perl 5 Language
libtest-pod-perl - Test::Pod - check for POD errors in files
libtest-differences-perl - Test string and data structure differences in perl
libtest-base-perl - A data driven testing framework for Perl
libtap-parser-perl - transitional dummy package
libtest-harness-perl - Run Perl standard test scripts with statistics
libtest-simple-perl - Basic utilities for writing tests in Perl
libtree-dagnode-perl - Tree:AG_Node - (super)class for representing nodes in a tree
libtest-pod-coverage-perl - Check for pod coverage in your distribution
libtext-diff-perl - Perform diffs on files and record sets in perl
libarray-compare-perl - Array::Compare - easily compare arrays
libarchive-zip-perl - Module for manipulation of ZIP archives
libalgorithm-diff-perl - a perl library for finding Longest Common Sequences in text
libmodule-pluggable-perl - Automatically provide your module the ability to accept plugins
libmodule-depends-perl - identify the dependencies of a distribution
libwww-mechanize-perl - Automate interaction with websites
libwww-perl - WWW client/server library for Perl (aka LWP)
libhtml-tagset-perl - Data tables pertaining to HTML
libhtml-tree-perl - represent and create HTML syntax trees
libspiffy-perl - Spiffy Perl Interface Framework For You
libcommon-sense-perl - module that implements some sane defaults for Perl programs
libclass-accessor-perl - Automated accessor generator
libclass-accessor-chained-perl - make chained accessors
libfile-chdir-perl - A more sensible way to change directories
libfont-ttf-perl - Perl module for TrueType font hacking
libfile-which-perl - Perl module for searching paths for executable programs
libdevel-symdump-perl - Perl module for inspecting perl's symbol table
libio-socket-ssl-perl - Perl module implementing object oriented interface to SSL sockets
libio-compress-base-perl - Base Class for IO::Compress modules
libio-compress-zlib-perl - Perl interface to zlib
libparent-perl - establish an ISA relationship with base classes at compile time
libpod-simple-perl - Perl framework for parsing files in Pod markup language
libpod-escapes-perl - CPAN's Pod::Escapes -- for resolving Pod E<...> sequences
libpod-coverage-perl - Checks perl module documentation for comprehensiveness
libpar-dist-perl - perl module to create and manipulate PAR distributions
libemail-date-format-perl - Module to generate RFC-2822-valid date strings
libextutils-parsexs-perl - Perl utility to process Perl XS code into C code
libextutils-cbuilder-perl - Compile and link C code for Perl modules
libextutils-xspp-perl - helper module to use Perl XS with C++ code
liberror-perl - Perl module for error/exception handling in an OO-ish way
liburi-perl - Manipulates and accesses URI strings
libxml-regexp-perl - Perl module for regular expressions for XML tokens
libxml-perl - Perl modules for working with XML
libxml-dom-perl - Perl module for building DOM Level 1 compliant doc structures
libio-stringy-perl - Perl modules for IO from scalars and arrays
dh-make-perl - Create Debian packages from perl modules
libappconfig-perl - Perl module for configuration file and command line handling
Nokia-N900:~#

perl and perl-modules should work fine, frozen-bubble uses them

Cool :-)

The perl-base package is quite minimai, as its name implies. To start with, install perl-modules which contains the rest of the vanilla Perl distribution and should be enough to get you through the llama book.

Hi extendedping,

The Perl version on Maemo, while a little old, is a fully functional and flexible Perl installation. I've written a bit about the Perl environment on Maemo here: http://wiki.maemo.org/Perl (Mostly technical stuff like packages available, etc.)

You can learn a great deal about Perl just using the installation out of the box on Maemo. A lot of the inner workings of Maemo are based on Perl because Maemo is based on Debian and Debian is essentially C libraries held together with Perl glue. :-) I'm taking liberties of course, but there is lots and lots of working perl code that is a fundamental part of Maemo.

Should you need a specific library you can fairly easily take a Debian package and compile it on your N900, or even submit the package with modifications to Maemo itself. Perl packages are generally quite portable.

Following the Llama book should be easy and fun on the N900!

Another option, particularly if you eventually find yourself needing to pull in obscure CPAN modules, is to install Easy Debian and use that Perl.

thanks everyone I installed perl and perl modules and am eble to follow the llama so far.

Don't jump into modules and stuff until you've got a lot of the basics hammered down and you've got bored of them It helps. The llama book is one of the best, perl is a really fun language. Good luck!

Thanks I do wonder if I should be trying python seems to be a lot more popular then perl these days from what I can tell. btw, is there any reason I would need to use easy debian to download and work with cpan modules as opposed to maemo?

Perl and Python are both excellent languages, why not try each and see which one you like (possibly both, they are not mutually exclusive).

Python is a lot more popular these days but as posted above, try both. I think a lot more modules are ready for easy debian so I guess that's why it's recommended.