Hi, this might be a stupid question, but right now I'm stuck with a
system with only perl-base installed, and I can't install perl nor perl-modules-* packages.

I suppose that perl-base is meant as a minimal version of perl, but
after experiencing that I can't install neither cpanminus nor perlbrew
via their corresponding bash scripts mostly due to lack of PerlIO (and
perhaps due to badly configured include paths not finding Cwd.pm)

I might be able to work around this with a chroot, and either run my
stuff in there, or copy enough out to run a local perl.

But, that brings me to the question of how useful perl-base is if PerlIO
is not included, is that something that should be included, are all
existing scripts/modules never needing it or rolling their own IO
things? Should stuff like cpanminus/locallib/perlbrew bring include
their own versions?

Note, this is not a complaint, I'm curious in what actually gets into
perl-base and what those decisions are based on.

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Hi Nicolas,

On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 07:24:01PM +0200, Nicolas Mendoza wrote:

Hi, this might be a stupid question, but right now I'm stuck with a system with only perl-base installed, and I can't install perl nor perl-modules-* packages.

That's a bit of a problem. How did that happen?

I suppose that perl-base is meant as a minimal version of perl,

No, it's meant as the bit of perl that goes into the base system.

dpkg requires perl for some small part of its work, and so there needs
to be some basic bit of perl in every Debian system. However, it isn't
useful as is for a common Perl developer or user.

(at least that used to be the case, I know the dpkg developers have been working on removing perl from its dependencies, not sure how far down
they are on doing that)

[...]

But, that brings me to the question of how useful perl-base is if PerlIO is not included, is that something that should be included, are all existing scripts/modules never needing it or rolling their own IO things? Should
stuff like cpanminus/locallib/perlbrew bring include their own versions?

You should install the "perl" package if you want perl to work properly.

The fact that that isn't working for you is a problem, one you should
try to fix instead of working around ;-)

--
To the thief who stole my anti-depressants: I hope you're happy

-- seen somewhere on the Internet on a photo of a billboard

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Den 20.08.2020 11:23, skrev Wouter Verhelst:

Hi Nicolas,

On Wed, Aug 19, 2020 at 07:24:01PM +0200, Nicolas Mendoza wrote:

Hi, this might be a stupid question, but right now I'm stuck with a system >> with only perl-base installed, and I can't install perl nor perl-modules-* >> packages.

That's a bit of a problem. How did that happen?

It's Ubuntu Touch with a read-only system. I know I can make it readable
and install perl. But as I try to explain the perl-base doesn't even
allow me to install perl in userland using common approaches. Either
perlbrew, locallib, cpanminus should run their own IO code as probably dpkg-related packages do, or perl-base might perhaps add some more
low-level modules.

I suppose that perl-base is meant as a minimal version of perl,

No, it's meant as the bit of perl that goes into the base system.

dpkg requires perl for some small part of its work, and so there needs
to be some basic bit of perl in every Debian system. However, it isn't
useful as is for a common Perl developer or user.

(at least that used to be the case, I know the dpkg developers have been working on removing perl from its dependencies, not sure how far down
they are on doing that)

[...]

Yeah I've noticed python stuff slowly creeping in over the years.

But, that brings me to the question of how useful perl-base is if PerlIO is >> not included, is that something that should be included, are all existing
scripts/modules never needing it or rolling their own IO things? Should
stuff like cpanminus/locallib/perlbrew bring include their own versions?

You should install the "perl" package if you want perl to work properly.

The fact that that isn't working for you is a problem, one you should
try to fix instead of working around ;-)

I am sorry if it wasn't clear, but I can't install the "perl" package as
part of the system. I have tried an approach with a chroot, but wasn't
able to finish it when I tried last time. My main question was also
intended to be how the parts that are included in perl-base are decided on.

Thanks for your reply,

Nicolas Mendoza

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