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in reply to Re^2: Understanding Perl / Brew Perl and Cpan on macOS
in thread Understanding Perl / Brew Perl and Cpan on macOS

G'day marto,

Thanks for that piece of information. Since I dropped macOS usage, I haven't kept abreast of that type of news.

My understanding is that Perlbrew requires Perl to be present for its initial installation. Subsequent work with Perlbrew — upgrading, installing new Perls, etc. — can utilise a Perl already installed by Perlbrew. I've used Perlbrew for a very long time and have always had some sort of system Perl to kickstart the process, this includes: macOS as just described; Cygwin on my current and past setups; and, Linux on my $work machine.

I had a look at "Perl Download". From what it has there, it looks like ActiveState Perl might be the best way to install an initial Perl from which Perlbrew can be run. The Mac Pro that I previously had has been cannibalised to the extent of being completely non-operational; I have no way of running macOS at the present time.

For future reference by those starting with macOS v10.15, or a later version, it would be helpful it someone could comment on the best way to start the Perlbrew process.

— Ken

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Re^4: Understanding Perl / Brew Perl and Cpan on macOS
by marto (Cardinal) on Apr 04, 2020 at 14:04 UTC

    Hey Ken, I'm not a Mac guy either, however rather than go down the AS route I think installing perl via brew would be better for the getting an initial version on the system, given that ActiveState now want you to have an account with them to download, and the version is old (5.28 at time of writing).

      I was curious about the ActiveState account creation process and whether that simply required an email address, for identification and confirmation purposes, or if it also wanted phone numbers, credit card details, date of birth, and such like. I followed the "ActiveState Perl" link in "Perl Download" (Mac OS X section) and was presented with:

      This site is blocked due to a phishing threat.

      www.activestate.com

      Phishing is a fraudulent attempt to get you to provide personal information under false pretenses. ...

      Sorry, www.activestate.com has been blocked by your network administrator.

      Given I'm running this from a Win10 platform, I also tried the "ActiveState Perl" link in the Windows section: I got the same result.

      Just for completeness, I tried the link with the same name from the Unix section. This time I got:

      Warning: Potential Security Risk Ahead

      Firefox detected a potential security threat and did not continue to www.activestate.com. If you visit this site, attackers could try to steal information like your passwords, emails, or credit card details. ...

      I did notice that the URLs in the Mac OS X and Windows sections had http:, while the one in the Unix section had https:. I copied the address from the Mac OS X section link, pasted it into a fresh tab, and added an 's', i.e. http: changed to https:: I now get the same result as I did for Unix (above).

      Obviously, that's not a very encouraging start. I had no such issues with the "perl via brew" link that you posted.

      I'm running Firefox 74.0 (64-bit) and have been for some time without any problems. I downloaded a newer version late yesterday but need to restart to complete the update. I'll advise if that makes any difference.
      Update (Firefox version): I now have Firefox 74.0.1 (64-bit). I retried everything mentioned above: no change.

      — Ken

        I've raised an issue with Perl.org regarding the link problems described above: #315

        — Ken

        I do not receive such warnings. You should ask your provider about this (or your employer, if you are using your company's network), because the message clearly states that
        www.activestate.com has been blocked by your network administrator.
        (emphasis by me)
Re^4: Understanding Perl / Brew Perl and Cpan on macOS
by Aaronrp (Scribe) on Apr 07, 2020 at 23:17 UTC
    If in future versions of MacOS Perlbrew no longer works, then I suspect Homebrew probably is the best place to get at least an initial replacement for the system perl after all.