Tuesday, September 6, 2011

CPAN on Windows

When trying to install Catalyst on Windows, I noticed some differences between Windows XP and Windows 7 64-bit installation of ActiveState perl. Namely, that dmake, and gcc would not install on the 64-bit version of Windows.

Here are some of the problems I had.


On Windows XP


C:\Documents and Settings\scottm>cpan
gcc.exe: Extraneous argument to `--' option
gcc.exe: No input files specified.
Set up gcc environment -

It looks like you don't have a C compiler and make utility installed. Trying
to install dmake and the MinGW gcc compiler using the Perl Package Manager.
This may take a a few minutes...

Downloading ActiveState Package Repository packlist...done
Updating ActiveState Package Repository database...done
Syncing site PPM database with .packlists...done
Downloading MinGW-5.1.4.1...done
Downloading dmake-4.11.20080107...done
Unpacking MinGW-5.1.4.1...done
Unpacking dmake-4.11.20080107...done
Generating HTML for MinGW-5.1.4.1...done
Generating HTML for dmake-4.11.20080107...done
Updating files in site area...done
1070 files installed

Please use the `dmake` program to run commands from a Makefile!


cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v1.9456)
Enter 'h' for help.


cpan>

On Windows 7

C:\Users\scottm>cpan

It looks like you don't have a C compiler and make utility installed. Trying
to install dmake and the MinGW gcc compiler using the Perl Package Manager.
This may take a a few minutes...

ppm.bat install failed: Can't find any package that provides MinGW

It looks like the installation of dmake and MinGW has failed. You will not be
able to run Makefile commands or compile C extension code. Please check your
internet connection and your proxy settings!


cpan shell -- CPAN exploration and modules installation (v1.9456)
Enter 'h' for help.


cpan> exit
Lockfile removed.

C:\Users\scottm>perl -v

This is perl 5, version 12, subversion 3 (v5.12.3) built for MSWin32-x64-multi-t
hread
(with 9 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)

Copyright 1987-2010, Larry Wall

Binary build 1204 [294330] provided by ActiveState http://www.ActiveState.com
Built Feb 9 2011 14:23:34


As much as I would like to get catalyst working, I did not have the patience to get all the dependencies intalled in both linux and Windows. I ended up giving up for now, and started playing with Joomla and Drupal instead.