Hi, It's useful, yet dissappointing, to know that the other database modules (such as SQLite) won't be fruitful as well since they all need to be compiled. I'll have to look into both of your options. Since the accounts are a type of "favor" in the first place, I'm causcious about how much I impose on the sysadmin. However, as you mention, it is probably the best option. Thank you very much for your information. One other thing, if I were to find another working Solaris box that did have gcc on it, would I be able to download and compile the module on that machine ( in let's say the /export/home/jdoe/.cpan/CPAN) and then copy the built module directory to the server (to somewhere like /export/home/joejaz/public_html/cgi-bin/project/lib/CPAN/, which would be a path that is included in each of my program files), or do you know if the path is statically built into the DBI binary (which would cause it to fail if I tried to move it to a different path)? Will CPAN allow me to do this? Thanks again for your post and for considering my problem. Joe