Debian Weekly News - email
To: debian-perl@lists.debian.org Subject: Experimental Perl 5.6 debs Reply-To: torin@daft.com From: Darren Stalder <darren@u.washington.edu> Date: 18 Apr 2000 18:01:39 -0700 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Put the following in your /etc/apt/sources.list to get the latest Perl-5.6 debs. deb http://www.daft.com/pub/debian/experimental ./ deb-src http://www.daft.com/pub/debian/experimental ./ Note that this will not make perl-5.6 your preferred Perl. This would probably be a bad idea since this Perl has not been thoroughly tested with all the Debian software. I've executed some tests that seem to pass but don't blame me if Perl 5.6 makes your cat pregnant. I imagine that you can figure out how to get these files using a webserver or ftpserver as well. Here is the changes file and the Todo list: perl-5.6 (5.6.0-0.1) unstable; urgency=low * New upstream version. New numbering system. * Note that there is currently no threading available with this version. The 5.6 threading model (interpreter threads) isn't currently usable from user space. 5.005 threads can be built but only will be if there is a demand for it since perl-5.005 is available. -- Darren Stalder <torin@daft.com> Wed, 12 Apr 2000 01:12:45 -0700 Todo file for Debian 5.6 * Change the base.prerm to manipulate the Perl version correctly: The version currently looks like 5.6.0 everywhere except for when we print out $] when it comes out at 5.006. Solution: export yes from Perl instead of exporting the version from Perl. * The alternative for Perl 5.6 is now wrong, it comes off as 56 which is significantly lower than 5005. * We need to write our own alternatives switcher. There are the following problems with the current solution: - Update alternatives is written in Perl so we have to go through contortions in the base.postinst to get it to work. - There are many files that need to be changed when a user wants to use a different Perl as the default. Having a user change all of these isn't reasonable and having that many slave links caused bugs at one point in update-alternatives - There have been reports of update-alternatives becoming mysteriously set to manual. Cons: - Yet another thing that could go wrong (but that's true of update-alternatives as well). - Different UI for the user to deal with. * Get patch for using shared libperl.so with statically linked Perl. * Check to see if it's alright to just have /usr/lib/perl/5.6 or if that's not specific enough. (Default install is 5.6.0) * Check and make sure that Perl is no longer spawning a shell when it globs. * @INC is now funky with duplicate directories in the path and $venderlib at the end of the search path rather than the beginning. Possibly re-institute the Debian patch to put /usr/lib/perl5 at the beginning of @INC. * Re-implement the MM::Unix patch that doesn't include /lib or /usr/lib in -rpath/LD_RUN_PATH during link time. Todo at somepoint (not needed for non-experimental release of 5.6) * The files needed by the base disks should be generated automatically rather than written by hand. * Build perl-\d+-doc in the binary-indep target. Darren - -- <torin@daft.com> <http://www.daft.com/~torin> <torin@debian.org> <torin@io.com> Darren Stalder/2608 Second Ave, @282/Seattle, WA 98121-1212/USA/+1-800-921-4996 @ Sysadmin, webweaver, postmaster for hire. C/Perl/CGI/Pilot programmer/tutor @ @ Make a little hot-tub in your soul. @ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3ia Charset: noconv Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.4, an Emacs/PGP interface iQCVAwUBOP0FcLQuaHP6LBjxAQHaXwP9G7avekmHGbAFHnxGeTQ5hwpOl4yW/3LH QWGP9J3YrYysBPHiQ+GJn6zXoXCJJYXZ2JQK3Da8009If4qzJf46jVWxEMYRJVgP LpIgHAyooMFjhBj2I7gTGK0oefg9MqtRmI4jKUM+0mKTdGtmU/Z/xK+UBCbzmiUI VhHhnqyHgX8= =EJyz -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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This issue of Debian Weekly News was edited by Joey Hess.