Hi all,
I am using MS Windows SP2.
I should like to share my positive and negative experience with the PPM (Perl Package Manager) with the community.
For a reason I uninstalled Perl from my computer and installed again. After installation only DBI was present, and for Mysql the DBD::mysql module was necessary. I vainly browsed the PPM suggested repositories, nowhere was available. At the end, I unactivated in PPM all the repositories but one, and I changed the active one, one after the other. At every repository I typed after the command prompt in a command window: ppm install DBD-mysql and hit enter. At the uwinnipeg this was successful, the module was downloaded, although very slowly, as with a modem (I'm using ADSL) and installed successfully. The negative experience is that PPM looks like not perfect. The positive is that at the end PPM helped to solve the problem.
With regards idbgy

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There is no way to know why the download was slow, that has nothing to do with PPM. Either the downlaod site was busy or your DSL providor was busy or your computer might have been overloaded doing other things.

PPM does have its negative side but also a positive side. The PPM GUI makes things pretty easy in my opinion. The need to add repositories is a bit of a pain, it would be nice if all the modules that have been compiled to use with activeperl were stored in a central repository similar to CPAN. There is also less modules available if you use activeperl but that has nothing to do with PPM itself.

But running the PPM GUI is so simple. Just click on it. It opens, downloads the packlists, synchronizes the data, and then you can see all the modules that are already installed, the ones you can install, you can also uninstall, and more, all in an easy to use GUI interface. Like any software it takes a few tries to learn how to use it, or you could read the instructions.

There is strawberryperl which is a Windows port of perl that uses CPAN just like you would with Unix or Linux. Just don't try and install more than one version of perl on your windows box. It is near impossible to get to work (and might be impossible) given the nature of how Windows works. If you wanted to try strawberry perl you will need to completely uninstall activeperl first.

Hi KevinADC,
Thanks for the exhausting explanation. I didn't want to tell other than to show that PPM isn't showing always the available packages although they are present. A command window and trial-error was necessary in addition to the GUI to install a package. Why? I don't know.
With regards idbgy

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