Re: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions

Why I am having so many problems ...

Hi, sorry to say the answer to that question is almost certainly "because you made some mistake(s)".

You are quite right that you should not have to, and should not, force installation of a Perl version under perlbrew.

It's really impossible to say from here what the issue is -- only that perlbrew problems always come down to paths, permissions, or both.

I can say that if you follow the documentation exactly it will indeed just work. You may have run something as root when not required, or vice-versa, or may have tried to manually do something ("upgrading patch perl has already been performed" ... should not be needed), or something else.

What I do with OS X is to remove my perls and my development one step further away from the system installation, by using a Linux virtual machine. See VirtualBox and Vagrant. It's very easy and quick. You can get prebuilt images for any flavour you like. If you use Vagrant you can share a directory between the host OS X system and your VMs so you can read/write to docs in both sessions simultaneously.

One of the main advantages to this approach is that if you screw up your system badly when getting it set up, you can just destroy it and start again. And then, once you have a base machine set up as you like it (including perlbrew and a perl or more, all your apps and resources, etc., you can save a copy and clone from it when building new VMs.

A final advantage, depending on how messed up is the system perlbrew installation, is that you could abandon it as is: the system still has the system perl, and in your VMs you are building from scratch. So that would at least get you going sooner, perhaps.

Hope this helps!

The way forward always starts with a minimal test.

Comment on Re: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions

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Re^2: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by marto (Cardinal) on Nov 26, 2017 at 14:19 UTC
"What I do with OS X is to remove my perls and my development one step further away from the system installation, by using a Linux virtual machine." Every developer I know who uses a Mac tells me this. What's the advantage of a Mac in terms of hardware/software if you're just spinning up a Linux VM to work?	[reply]
Re^3: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by 1nickt (Canon) on Nov 26, 2017 at 14:56 UTC
Hi marto, What's the advantage of a Mac in terms of hardware/software if you're just spinning up a Linux VM to work? There is none any longer. It used to be that the hardware advantage was the Retina monitor, but now there are plenty of vendors that provide nice 4K screens on 13" or 14" laptops. Now, on the contrary, the Macbooks have fallen behind in hardware, offering less RAM and disk space and slower chips and disks than competitor systems. My latest machine is a Lenovo Yoga 910 which I bought with Windows 10 but never booted before wiping and installing Ubuntu. It has 16GB Ram and a 1Tb SSD drive, as well as 4K screen. It flipping screams. Many devs working at a $company choose to use a Mac with Linux VM because the IT dept insists on having a bunch of spyware, errr, corporate security tools, on the machine, so it's a choice between Windows or Mac. (In a week from today I'll be getting a new laptop from $newjob -- the manager strongly suggests Macbook with VMs, having himself just switched from native Linux, lol. I don't prefer it as the VirtualBox app on the Macbook always seems to get too hot eventually (consuming all system RAM) and you wind up having to reboot the entire thing or at least the VM platform. I don't have this problem running desktop Ubuntu on the Lenovo (always did used to have problems with a Linux GUI, things have improved). So, I plan to try to get a Linux machine, maybe they will offer the Dell. If not, I plan to bork a Windows machine and install Ubuntu, if I can get a client for the VPN. Will report back.) The way forward always starts with a minimal test.	[reply]
Re^4: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by marto (Cardinal) on Nov 27, 2017 at 19:35 UTC
Thanks, this is the conclusion I had drawn, but you're the first to admit it :P	[reply]
Re^3: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Nov 28, 2017 at 07:42 UTC
I develop on Mac. It never remotely occurred to me that I might need a Linux VM on it. Never installed one. OS X is Unix.	[reply]
Re^4: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by 1nickt (Canon) on Nov 28, 2017 at 13:30 UTC
There are two reasons I always have a Linux VM on Mac. First, to replicate the production build environment I'm developing for. Second, because Apple are always screwing around with things, e.g. the issue at the root of this thread (Berkeley DB must be installed manually on the lastest MacOS release prior to installing Perl); changing system perms in OS X El Capitan so the root user is unable to write to certain areas of the file system (hard to say "MacOS is UNIX" when root is not root ...), etc. Then there is the issue you mentioned below, namely the ease of installing applications and libraries on Linux versus a laborious, convoluted or even frustrating procedure on the Mac. The way forward always starts with a minimal test.	[reply]
Re^4: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by marto (Cardinal) on Nov 28, 2017 at 11:22 UTC
"OS X is Unix." Hence my confusion as to why so many people I've seen using a Mac need a Linux VM to get things done :P	[reply]
Re^5: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by Your Mother (Archbishop) on Nov 28, 2017 at 12:30 UTC
Re^6: Using Perlbrew macOS impossible to install distributions by marto (Cardinal) on Nov 28, 2017 at 12:49 UTC


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