Upgrading Perl 5.8.7 to 5.8.8 -- with no side effects?

[ChantCd]

I am still having a problem compiling Apache on Ubuntu Server 6.06 LTS.
I can solve THIS problem at least by installing Perl 5.8.8 from source -- but I don't know which directories to use so that it will completely overwrite the old Perl. Do I have to install or move all my existing Perl modules after the upgrade to 5.8.8?

I ask this because when I upgraded to 5.8.8 from source, I discovered that nothing that even TOUCHED Perl worked anymore. I had to wipe the whole machine and start over! I'm to the point in my system-building process where I need to get Apache built, but if I install Perl 5.8.8 and it bombs my system again, I'll be back to square one AGAIN.

I heard about a utility called CPAN.pm which catalogs all your modules, and downloads them again for you easily after an upgrade. Does that mean there's no way to install a new version of Perl and not have to install everything else over again?

Maybe someone could tell me some of the pertinent switches (or directories) for Perl installation. I'm thinking that if I knew enough about Perl installation, I'd be able to tell it to use the right directories, and it would overwrite the old one and there'd be no problems. I mean, I'm only upgrading from 5.8.7 to 5.8.8 -- it can't be that big of a change!

But it's enough of a change to fix my problem (see end of post). I think it's more because I'm compiling it myself, rather than something in the Perl executable itself.

Any ideas? Anyone else had this same problem?

Thanks,

Matthew
matthew at tanbooks dot com

===============================================================
About my Perl version (it came pre-installed with Ubuntu):

(Short version -v)
This is perl, v5.8.7 built for i486-linux-gnu-thread-multi

(Long version -V)
Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 8 subversion 7) configuration:
Platform:
osname=linux, osvers=2.6.10, archname=i486-linux-gnu-thread-multi
uname='linux rothera 2.6.10 #1 smp fri may 13 09:24:22 utc 2005 i686 gnulinux '
config_args='-Dusethreads -Duselargefiles -Dccflags=-DDEBIAN -Dcccdlflags=-fPIC -Darchname=i486-linux-gnu -Dprefix=/usr -Dprivlib=/usr/share/perl/5.8 -Darchlib=/usr/lib/perl/5.8 -Dvendorprefix=/usr -Dvendorlib=/usr/share/perl5 -Dvendorarch=/usr/lib/perl5 -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dsitelib=/usr/local/share/perl/5.8.7 -Dsitearch=/usr/local/lib/perl/5.8.7 -Dman1dir=/usr/share/man/man1 -Dman3dir=/usr/share/man/man3 -Dsiteman1dir=/usr/local/man/man1 -Dsiteman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3 -Dman1ext=1 -Dman3ext=3perl -Dpager=/usr/bin/sensible-pager -Uafs -Ud_csh -Uusesfio -Uusenm -Duseshrplib -Dlibperl=libperl.so.5.8.7 -Dd_dosuid -des'
hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
usethreads=define use5005threads=undef useithreads=define usemultiplicity=define
useperlio=define d_sfio=undef uselargefiles=define usesocks=undef
use64bitint=undef use64bitall=undef uselongdouble=undef
usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef
Compiler:
cc='cc', ccflags ='-D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -DTHREADS_HAVE_PIDS -DDEBIAN -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -I/usr/local/include -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64',
optimize='-O2',
cppflags='-D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -DTHREADS_HAVE_PIDS -DDEBIAN -fno-strict-aliasing -pipe -I/usr/local/include'
ccversion='', gccversion='4.0.3 20051204 (prerelease) (Ubuntu 4.0.2-5ubuntu2)', gccosandvers=''
intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8, byteorder=1234
d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=12
ivtype='long', ivsize=4, nvtype='double', nvsize=8, Off_t='off_t', lseeksize=8
alignbytes=4, prototype=define
Linker and Libraries:
ld='cc', ldflags =' -L/usr/local/lib'
libpth=/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib
libs=-lgdbm -lgdbm_compat -ldb -ldl -lm -lpthread -lc -lcrypt
perllibs=-ldl -lm -lpthread -lc -lcrypt
libc=/lib/libc-2.3.5.so, so=so, useshrplib=true, libperl=libperl.so.5.8.7
gnulibc_version='2.3.5'
Dynamic Linking:
dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags='-Wl,-E'
cccdlflags='-fPIC', lddlflags='-shared -L/usr/local/lib'


Characteristics of this binary (from libperl):
Compile-time options: MULTIPLICITY USE_ITHREADS USE_LARGE_FILES
PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT
Locally applied patches:
SPRINTF0 - fixes for sprintf formatting issues - CVE-2005-3962
Built under linux
Compiled at Dec 16 2005 07:48:39
@INC:
/etc/perl
/usr/local/lib/perl/5.8.7
/usr/local/share/perl/5.8.7
/usr/lib/perl5
/usr/share/perl5
/usr/lib/perl/5.8
/usr/share/perl/5.8
/usr/local/lib/site_perl
===============================================================

Here are 5% of the error messages I get (they mostly look like this):

:Table.c.text+0x3207): undefined reference to `Perl_Gthr_key_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x3231): undefined reference to `Perl_newXS'
:Table.c.text+0x323d): undefined reference to `Perl_Gthr_key_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x324f): undefined reference to `Perl_Tstack_base_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x3263): undefined reference to `Perl_Gthr_key_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x3275): undefined reference to `Perl_Isv_yes_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x3283): undefined reference to `Perl_Gthr_key_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x3295): undefined reference to `Perl_Tstack_sp_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x32a3): undefined reference to `Perl_Gthr_key_ptr'
:Table.c.text+0x32b5): undefined reference to `Perl_Tstack_base_ptr'
...
Loader.c.text+0x39c): undefined reference to `Perl_mg_set'
ynaLoader.c.text+0x3d9): undefined reference to `Perl_sv_newmortal'
ynaLoader.c.text+0x3ed): undefined reference to `Perl_sv_2iv'
ynaLoader.c.text+0x407): undefined reference to `Perl_croak'
/usr/lib/perl/5.8/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a(DynaLoader.o): In function `XS_DynaLoader_dl_find_symbol'ynaLoader.c.text+0x492): undefined reference to `Perl_sv_newmortal'
ynaLoader.c.text+0x4b7): undefined reference to `Perl_sv_setiv'
ynaLoader.c.text+0x4d6): undefined reference to `Perl_sv_2iv'
ynaLoader.c.text+0x4f8): undefined reference to `Perl_sv_2pv_nolen'
ynaLoader.c.text+0x53d): undefined reference to `Perl_croak'

 

[MikeLacey]

Hello Matthew,

Hope this reply doesn't come too late for you.

When you're building Perl, rather than just installing a pre-built version of Perl, you choose where the Perl executable goes and where the libraries etc. go as well.

If you're building Perl for your system you will probably go through the following steps or similar:

make
make test
make install



Mike

The options are: fast, cheap and right - pick any two. &

Want great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at faq219-2884

 

[ChantCd]

I built Perl 5.8.8 using the steps you outlined (make, make test, make install) and it even fixed the one problem --

BUT...

Then some other things were broken. For instance, I had it install scripts in /usr/bin, so things like "addgroup" and "adduser" were overwritten. I need to add a linux account, and I couldn't because "adduser" was some perl script.

Also some other things were broken. I believe it was because I installed Perl to the wrong place.

What are the switches I should use for ./configure for Perl 5.8.8? That might help a lot.

Thanks,

Matthew