Please help I am totally lost trying to install and use ActiveState perl

Perl
,
1

I used to use perl, quite successfully. (I am not a programmer).

But on my latest (Mint) Linux machine, I tried installing ActiveState perl as advised by the internet and nothing seems to work.

If I run ppm without arguments, I do not get the GUI, just this:

█ Running Script: ppm


Script Output
─────────────
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /tmp/ppm298802769.pl line 22.
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /tmp/ppm298802769.pl line 22.
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /tmp/ppm298802769.pl line 22.
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /tmp/ppm298802769.pl line 22.
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at /tmp/ppm298802769.pl line 22.
Could not shim your command as it is not supported by the State Tool.
Please check 'state --help' to find the best analog for the command you're trying to run.
To configure this shim edit the following file:
/home/stewart/Perl-5.36.0-Linux/activestate.yaml

When I run a simple script, with “use Strict;”, I get this:

Can't locate Strict.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Strict module) (@INC contains: /home/stewart/.cache/activestate/d9f391d5/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.36.0/x86_64-linux /home/stewart/.cache/activestate/d9f391d5/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.36.0 /home/stewart/.cache/activestate/d9f391d5/lib/perl5/5.36.0/x86_64-linux /home/stewart/.cache/activestate/d9f391d5/lib/perl5/5.36.0) at ./makeSummary.pl line 8.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./makeSummary.pl line 8.

Also the perl executable seems to be in a very stupid place:

$ which -a perl
/home/stewart/.cache/activestate/d9f391d5/exec/perl
/home/stewart/.cache/activestate/bin/perl
/usr/bin/perl
/bin/perl

How can I sort this out, or uninstall ActiveState perl?

2

Hi @rstewart - In short, ppm is no longer supported, you can read a bit more about that here Goodbye PPM, Hello State Tool - ActiveState

Instead, you can use the ActiveState Platform to manage the packages in your runtime. You can do that using the Web UI or via the command line using our CLI (called the State Tool). Here are some guides…

Managing packages with the Web UI

You can do this for your Perl 5.36 project by going to ActiveState and then clicking the Add Packages button. Once the project builds you can follow the install instructions from the Builds tab.

Managing packages using CLI
https://platform.activestate.com/state-tool-cheat-sheet

In short, you can state install package-name instead of using PPM.

Let me know if this helps or if you have additional questions.

If you want to uninstall all the things, you can follow the instructions here: Uninstall :: ActiveState Platform Documentation

3

Many thanks for the information.