Hi,
I’ll give you an informal answer (I don’t work for ActiveState), in the hope that it will help you understand how ActiveState differs from other Perl distributions, and prepare you for more precise answers that may come from other members of this community.
Like you, I was expecting to download an executable, add packages and be on my way. In fact, that’s what I did with ActivePerl 5.16 and 5.28 (and probably other versions before that). About a year ago, I needed to update to a more recent version and discovered what follows.
ActiveState no longer provides “packaged executables”; they provide a platform that you use to specify what you need (a project), and you get a runtime that is built by ActiveState’s servers. You then download this runtime on your computer. Quoting from the ActiveState site:
Each project contains a runtime, a ready-to-use language bundled with just the packages you need.
To create a runtime, you need to create an account for yourself on ActiveState, configure your project on the ActiveState site, download and install the state tool on your computer, and use this tool to download and install your runtime.
Early on, I struggled with this notion of runtime because of the possibility of having multiple runtimes concurrently, each with a different version of Perl or a different set of packages. I don’t need that, and in fact you cannot have more than one runtime unless you pay for a higher-level tier. What I need is one instance of Perl available to all users, in the same location. I came up with repeatable steps here: How do I get rid of extra runtimes?. As noted later in that thread, state auth is not required.
Yes, it is initially more complicated than downloading a Perl executable like we used to do. In return for this initial effort, you get easier updates (go to your ActiveState account, add or update packages, build and download) and easier support (the ActiveState staff can have a look at your project configuration). If this process doesn’t fit your needs, then you’ll have to look at other distributions or repositories, such as Strawberry Perl or Cygwin.
By the way, you didn’t provide much information in your request. What did you try and what happened? What operating system do you use? Why do you need this executable? Without this information, it’s harder to help you, and perhaps my answer above totally missed the mark.
Cheers,
Martin