There's 15 failed tests ("Failed 15/20 test programs."): I'll need to go through each to find the actual problems.

If all are simply quoting uses, then the solution is straightforward (if a little tedious to implement across the board). Let's see how that pans out before worrying about config modifications and the like.

I recall you specified a minimum Perl version of v5.6. I've checked https://perldoc.perl.org/5.6.0/functions/quotemeta and https://perldoc.perl.org/5.6.0/perlop; quotemeta, \Q and \E are all available in that version, so no issues there.

"If all else fails I will have to resort to prompting the user during installation. Any opinions on that style?"

As I said, let's wait and see if secondary options are necessary; however, my general "opinions on that style" are:

• I don't, as a rule, like it. On a number of occasions, I've started what I expected to be a fairly long-running installation, gone off to do something else while it runs, then returned ten or so minutes later only to find that, two seconds after I walked away from the screen, it prompted: "Specify location of whatever [/usr/bin/whatever]?" or something similar.
• There are cases where it simply can't be avoided.
• I have (reluctantly) used it myself in production code.
• Where it has been necessary, I have tried to indicate early on that user intervention will be required.

"Thanks for your time spent and valuable feedback. I am not in a hurry, please work on it in your own pace."

No worries. I am rather eager to see how this works.

I have, in fact, spent most of this week (at $work) modifying modules and repeatedly going through the make cycle, tweaking tests to reflect the changes. While I'm happy to do this, "All work and no play makes Ken a dull boy.", so I need a break. As I said this morning, I can probably look into this further over the weekend. [Current lockdown restrictions means that I'm not even allowed guests in my home, so I'm certainly free to do this work.]