Perl Ports (Binary Distributions)

This archive file is now out of date and not maintained, the current ports page is your best starting place.

Acorn | AIX | Amiga | Apollo | Apple | Atari | AtheOS | BeOS | BSD | BSD/OS | Coherent | Compaq | Concurrent | Cygwin | Darwin | DEC OSF/1 | DG/UX | Digital | Digital UNIX | DJGPP | DOS | Domain/OS | DragonFlyBSD | DYNIX/ptx | Embedix | EMC | EPOC | FreeBSD | Fujitsu | GNU Darwin | Guardian | HP | HP-UX | IBM | IRIX | Japanese | JPerl | Linux | LynxOS | Macintosh | Mac OS X | Mac OS | MinGW | Minix | MiNT | MorphOS | MPE/iX | MS-DOS |/ MVS | NetBSD | NetWare | NextStep | NonStop | NonStop-UX | Novell | OpenBSD | OpenVMS | OS/2 | OS/390 | OS/400 | OSF/1 | Plan 9 | Pocket PC | PowerMAX | Psion | QNX | Reliant UNIX | RISCOS | Sequent | SGI | Sharp | Siemens | SINIX | Solaris | Stratus | Sun | Syllable | Symbian | Tandem | Tivo | Tru64 | UNIX | VMS | VOS | Win32 | WinCE | Windows 3.1 | Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP | z/OS

No known ports for: Inferno | OS1100 | PalmOS | PRIMOS | VxWorks

Note that CPAN does not build these packages: we just provide the hyperlinks. So please don't ask to build a package for you: you have access to the plaftorm, not us. Also, this page lists operating systems, not hardware platforms: therefore Perl packages for, say, Linux PDAs or SONY Playstation, or XBox, or toasters, or so forth running Linux are not "ports" as such.

There are, of course, exceptions to the above: if for some reason getting packages for the particular platform is hard (of example not that many people have the compiler environment for the platform, or the compiler environment is a tricky cross-compilation environment, or there is no common repository for sharing packages), CPAN can consider hosting packages or adding links for such platforms. But if there is a commonly known repository to get packages in that particular platform, please first prefer uploading your Perl package there one instead of CPAN, because that common repository is where the users will go first. We can add a link to this page pointing to that common repository, of course.

Note that this page is exceptional in CPAN in that we list some shareware and commercial software when it comes to Perl editors, IDEs, and SDKs. Anywhere else in CPAN we strongly disapprove any non-free (as in beer) software.

Corrections? Additions? Suggestions? Please contact cpan@perl.org. Other questions? See the CPAN FAQ.

Copyright Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi> 1998-2007 All Rights Reserved.

This document contains pointers to binary distributions of Perl. However:

Use The Source

If you are on a UNIX, I strongly suggest that you compile Perl yourself from the source code distribution. This way you always get the latest Perl and you can configure Perl as you like and you avoid the security risks inherent in installing binary distributions. If you are on Windows or MacOS, and you do not think you have any special needs, you will probably be perfectly happy with a binary build. See also the disclaimer. If you have UNIX, or Windows, MS-DOS, VMS, Amiga, QNX, Plan9, MPE/iX, OS/390, BeOS, and a C compilation environment, you should be all set for compilation, the source code kit contains the compilation instructions. For Macintosh you need a little bit more. If your platform is something else, read on.

Some architectures also have available binary distributions for the most useful and popular Perl modules (such as Tk, MD5, GD). Some of the Perl binary distributions include such module distributions. For some architectures I also list sites that have other useful (but unrelated-to-Perl) software available. You can for example try finding C compilers (gcc is available on many platforms) or archival and compression tools (what to do about .tar.gz, for example).

Perl Frequently Asked Questions, with Answers | CPAN FAQ

AIX

Starting from AIX 4.3.3 Perl 5 ships standard with AIX. (Perl 5.8.0 with AIX 5L V5.2, 5.6.0 with AIX 5L V5.1, 5.005_03 with AIX 4.3.3.)

  • Bull Freeware Has also binary module distributions. Self-extracting LPP format. Also a lot of other software available.

The IBM SP/2 used to ship with Perl 5.001e, a truly ancient version.

Amiga

  • Perl from Aminet (also other software available)

Apple

Atari MiNT

BeOS / Haiku

Starting from Perl 5.005 the BeOS support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution.

  • 5.10 binary is available
  • BeBits has a lot of other software.

BSD

BSD/OS|GNU Darwin PPC|DragonFlyBSD|FreeBSD|NetBSD|OpenBSD|OS X

BSDI BSD/OS

Perl has always been a standard component of BSD/OS. As of BSD/OS 4.1 or December 1999, Perl 5.005_03 is included.

Coherent

Cygwin

The easiest way to install Perl in Cygwin is simply to use the standard Cygwin installation utility. Just follow the link and click on the "Install Cygwin now" icon. It will first ask questions about where to install and from where to install, and then you'll get to select what to install/update.

Darwin

DEC OSF/1 / Digital UNIX / Tru64

Data General DG/UX

Since DG/UX R4.20MU04 ships with Perl 5. NIS on OS depends on a dgadm.pl library, one needs to be careful before overwriting /usr/bin/perl if upgrading.

Perl 5.6.1 (or newer) source is known to compile fine on DG/UX.

Data General

Data General is now a division of EMC.

Digital UNIX

Apollo Domain/OS

Perl 5.6.1 (or newer) source is known to compile fine on Domain/OS.

DragonFlyBSD

The pksrc.dragonflybsd.org site has hundreds of prebuilt packages for DFlyBSD, use pkg_add -r packagename to install.

Sequent DYNIX/ptx

As of DYNIX/ptx 4.5.0 or September 1999, Perl 5.005_03 is a standard component.

Perl 5.6.1 (or newer) source is known to compile fine on DYNIX/ptx.

FreeBSD

Since September 1998 or FreeBSD 3.2 Perl 5 has been a standard component.

Tandem/Compaq/HP Guardian

Tivo

HP/Apollo/Compaq/Digital/Tandem

HP-UX

Starting from mid-October 2001 Perl 5.6.1 is shipped as a standard part of HP-UX 11.00 installation.

You can get also Perl 5.10.1 from the HP-UX Porting And Archive Centre [UK].

Recent Perl binaries for HP-UX 10.20, 11.00, 11.11, 11.23, and 11.31 in depots including recent versions of modules like DBI and Tk. All Perls are prepared to build DBD-Oracle (Perl needs to be linked with certain libraries). This site has a lot of HP-UX Perl related information.

IBM

SGI IRIX

Starting from IRIX 6.4 Perl 5 ships standard with IRIX. (Perl 5.004_04 with IRIX 6.5, but see below for fresher versions.)

Japanese

(No, Japanese is not a new operating system. We just list "Japanized" versions of Perl here.)

JPerl

JPerl is a port of the Perl 5 that can handle the Japanese legacy encodings Japanese EUC and Shift-JIS (aka MS-Kanji).

NOTE! As of Perl 5.8.0 it is suggested that instead of JPerl (which is based on a quite old release of Perl) you should just use Perl 5.8.0, since it can do all that JPerl did, and more. With the source code kit of Perl 5.8.0 comes the README.jp file, which details the capabilities. When Perl 5.8.0 gets installed, the file gets installed as perljp, so perldoc or man or equivalents should be able to find it.

  • JPerl Perl 5.005 binaries for MS-Windows and MS-DOS (DJGPP)
  • JPerl source code patches (for Perls 5.004...5.005_04)

MacJPerl

For Macintosh there is a port of MacPerl to Japanese.

Linux

  • ActiveState DEB, RPM, ActiveState formats
  • SiePerl for Linux by Siemens, contains several modules

Many people ask for "Perl for RedHat / SuSE / Mandrake / Debian / Gentoo / Slackware / LinuxPPC / OpenLinux / TurboLinux / RockLinux / Yellow Dog Linux / LFS / WhateverLinuxDistribution?" Well...

  1. If your Linux distribution doesn't already contain or have a reasonably recent Perl release (as of April 2004, Perl 5.8.4 and 5.6.2 are just out), are you certain you have chosen a good distribution? A distribution that contains essential tools like Perl? A distribution that keeps its packages up-to-date?
  2. For a long time I tried maintaining the links to the Perl distributions of at least the major Linux distributions but that turned out to be rather frustrating exercise because the vendors/organizations seem to be restructuring their sites constantly.
  3. Not all Linux distributions are or will stay alive.
  4. You have Linux, which means that you have a full compilation environment, which means you can use the source code.

Perl is known to be a standard component of the following distributions:

Debian

OS Name / versionDefault Perl version
Woody (3.0) 5.6.1
Etch (4.0) 5.8.8
Lenny (5.0) 5.10.0
Squeeze (6.0) 5.10.1+patches

Last updated: 2011-03-13

  • Gentoo: 5.8.2 as of April 2004
  • Mandrake: 5.6.1 since Mandrake 8.1, 5.8.1 since Mandrake 9.2
  • RedHat: 5.8.0 both in RH 8 and RH 9, 5.6.1 in RHEL 2.1, 5.8.0 prerelease in RHEL 3.0, originally 5.8.1 in FC1, later "erratad" to 5.8.3
  • Slackware: 5.6.1 since Slackware 8.0, 5.8.0 since Slackware 9.0
  • SuSE: 5.8.0 as of SuSE 8.1, 5.8.1 as of SuSE 9.0

Some Linux environments are somewhat tricky to compile software to because they are cross-compilation environments.

There are Perl IDEs available for Linux. Firstly, there are the usual UNIX IDEs. Then there are various IDEs originating from Win32 but also available in Linux:

  • Perl Builder from Solutionsoft (IDE Windows only, ActivePerl also for Linux and Solaris)
  • PerlEdit from IndigoStar (Windows and Linux)

The SciTE editor works on both X (gtk+) and Win32.

The multiplatform Eclipse IDE framework has Perl plugins available through the EPIC project.

LynxOS

Starting from Perl 5.005 the LynxOS support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution. But you can take a look at Lynx (as of 2004 Lynuxworks):

Apple Macintosh

Mac OS X

Mac OS X ships with Perl as a standard component.

OS Name / versionDefault Perl version
Jaguar (10.2) 5.6.0
Panther (10.3) 5.8.1-RC3
Tiger (10.4) 5.8.6+patches
Leopard (10.5) 5.8.8
Snow Leopard (10.6) 5.8.9

Last updated: 2011-03-13

Building the source requires you to have also installed the "Mac OS X Developer tools" available on recent OSX install DVDs, alternatively they can be downloaded from Apple Developer (free registration). (Note: in 10.3 you should also install the optional BSD SDK, otherwise installing new Perl modules won't work.)

Perl is available for Mac OS X also from third parties:

or via open source software packaging systems:

Environments for Perl and Mac OS X:

  • Affrus is an integrated Perl editing and debugging environment for Mac OS X.
  • BBEdit is a nice Perl environment for Mac OS X (BBEdit Lite is free, but the full version costs money).
  • Camel Bones is an Objecttive-C / Perl framework
  • Eclipse multiplatform IDE has Perl plugins (see also Apple information)
  • mi is a fast coloring freeware editor (previously known as MMKEdit).
  • Padre, the Perl IDE (Perl Application Development and Refactoring Environment) works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X
  • The Perlidex is a simple Perl IDE for Mac OS X.
  • PerlObjCBridge comes standard with Mac OS X

Mac OS Classic (pre-X)

MacPerl is not supported (as of December 2004, version 5.8.8) For older Mac OS versions:

MacJPerl

MacJPerl is (as of August 2002) based on older port of MacPerl (which was based on Perl 5.004), and the JPerl patches (which were based on Perl 5.005).

MinGW

MinGW is a collection of header files and import libraries that allow one to use GCC and produce native Windows32 programs.

  • Strawberry Perl, A 100% Open Source CPAN-capable Perl for Windows that works exactly the same as Perl everywhere else (includes Perl for Win32, MinGW, dmake, CPAN preconfigured, libwin32, Win32::API, PPM, PAR, Expat/XML::Parser).
  • Vanilla Perl, Experimental/unstable core-Perl-only port used for MinGW-based distribution R&D (includes Perl for Win32, MinGW,

Minix

MPE/iX

Starting from Perl 5.005 the MPE/iX support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution. But if you insist on a potentially obsolete binary:

MiNT

MS-DOS

Starting from Perl 5.005 the MS-DOS support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution. But if you insist on a binary:

Several possibilities exist, the most recommendable listed first.

There is also a Japanese port of Perl for DOS (DJGPP).

NetBSD

Novell NetWare

NetWare sources for Perl 5.8 has been integrated with the Perl standard source code distribution.

The Perl for NetWare binaries are available on the Novell NDK site site and at the following location, too: http://www.cpan.org/ports/netware/ (you probably are already there). Once you subscribe to the NDK you can download many other NDK components. The NDK site contains useful documentation and installation instructions.

mod_perl, perl MySQL and other extensions to Perl are available as part of the NDK Perl 5.8 download. Additional Perl modules that are not part of the NetWare binaries can be downloaded from CPAN.

NextStep

OpenBSD

OS Name / versionDefault Perl version
2.7 5.6.0
4.8 5.10.1+patches

Last updated: 2011-03-13

Perl has always been a standard component of formal OpenBSD releases.

Tandem/Compaq NonStop/NonStop-UX

Starting from Perl 5.8.0 the NonStop-UX support is integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution.

OS1100

(No known Perl binary distributions)

(No known Perl ports at all, to be more exact.)

(No known POSIX or C, so porting Perl would be a neat trick.)

IBM OS/2

The OS/2 port works also for MS-DOS and Win31.

IBM OS/400

Perl 5.005_03, Perl-DBD, Perl-DBI, and several other development and programming tools are available as iSeries Tools for Developers PRPQ 5799-PTL.

PalmOS

(No known Perl binary distributions)

(No known Perl ports at all, to be more exact.)

Plan 9

Go to the Bell labs Plan 9 site and click on the "Additional Software", which will have among other things a Perl 5.8.0. Note that you'll have to accept the Plan 9 license before getting to the additional software.

PowerMAX

Starting from Perl 5.005 the PowerMAX support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution.

PrimOS

(No known Perl binary distributions)

(No known Perl ports at all, to be more exact.)

(No known POSIX or C, so porting Perl would be a neat trick.)

EPOC Release 5

ER5 works in the Psion 5mx, the Psion 7, the Psion netBook the Psion netPad, and the Ericsson MC 218.

If you are looking for Symbian, you want the Symbian port, since the EPOC port will not run on Symbian.

QNX

Sharp Embedix

  • Perl 5.8.0 for Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 (rom ver 2.39), OS Embedix, release 1, IPK format, from Peter J. Mason

Fujitsu-Siemens ReliantUNIX

(Formerly known as Siemens SINIX)

Since SINIX 5.43 or 1997 Perl 5.003 has shipped as a standard component. That is really old, you will want to compile from the sources.

Acorn RISCOS

Please note that this is the Acorn RISCOS, not the MIPS RISC-OS (for the latter, just use the source code distribution).

SGI

Sequent

Sun Solaris

Starting from Solaris 8 Perl 5 ships standard with Solaris. (Perl 5.005_03 with Solaris 8 (SunOS 5.8), SunOS 5.9 ("Solaris 9") includes Perl 5.6.1, SunOS 5.10 ("Solaris 10") includes Perl 5.8.4 (plus a lot of perl5-porters patches)

  • ActiveState pkgadd, ActiveState formats
  • SiePerl for Solaris by Siemens, contains several modules
  • Sun Freeware pkgadd format. Also a lot of other software available.

Stratus

Syllable (AtheOS)

The original AtheOS project seems to have been abandoned.

The Syllable project seems to have picked up from where AtheOS left. The Syllable SourceForge download site has a lot of software including Perl.

Symbian

Tandem/Compaq

Tru64

(Formerly known as Digital UNIX formerly known as DEC OSF/1)

Starting from Tru64 V5.0 Perl 5 ships standard with Tru64 as /usr/bin/perl, but the runtime support (modules and documentation) are in a separate optional subset. (As of Tru64 V5.0 5.004_04, but 5.005_03 is on the supplementary freeware CD-ROM.)

UNIX

Traditionally UNIX was synonymous with C and a C compiler. You should be able to take any platform that calls itself UNIX and compile Perl on it without problems from the source code. (If this fails, your vendor is likely to be cheating you by not supplying you with a fully functional ANSI-capable compiler. They call this an "unbundled" compiler and "progress", too, by giving the customer "more options", in other words, making you pay more.) Therefore, nowadays, for various reasons, people do ask for binary distributions.

AIX | BSD/OS | Coherent | Data General | DEC OSF/1 | DG/UX | Digital UNIX | Domain/OS | DYNIX/ptx | FreeBSD | HP-UX | IRIX | Linux | Mac OS X | NetBSD | NextStep | NonStop | OpenBSD | OSF/1 | PowerMAX | SINIX | ReliantUNIX | Solaris | Tru64

Many of the UNIX text editors can be thought as IDEs: GNU Emacs | Vile | vim | XEMacs

For debugging Perl, there is of course the standard Perl debugger itself. If the command line is not your bag, there are various graphical frontends:

  • DDD (Data Display Debugger) (requires Motif/lesstif)
  • ptkdb (requires the Tk extension)
  • PerlDbGUI (requires the Tk extension)

If you are on x86 Linux, you might also want to try the various available IDEs.

See also the EPIC project for Eclipse Perl plugins.

VMS

Since September 1995 VMS 6.2 Perl has been on the Freeware CD (part of the standard installation). As of Freeware 6.0 (December 2003) the Perl release is 5.8.1, the Freeware 5.0 had 5.005_03.

HP has Perl (Perl 5.6.1) and modperl available, and lots of other open source, too.

There are also builds by vmsperl folks (non-Compaq) builds available at

Stratus VOS

Starting from Perl 5.005_03 the VOS support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution. Since June 2002, Stratus supplies a fully-supported copy of Perl 5.6.1 in Release 2.0.1 of their GNU C++ & GNU Tools product, which runs on the Continuum product line and requires VOS Release 14.5.0 or later. If you do not wish to build Perl from source, or cannot meet the prerequisites for this product, or need a newer release of Perl, you can obtain binaries of Perl from Stratus:

  • Stratus, save.evf.gz format. From Stratus but not supported by Stratus, runs on all Stratus platforms and many releases, but is not fully functional (because of the incomplete POSIX support it uses) (available from the same place). (Perl 5.8.0 as of August 2002) Also other software available.
  • Stratus, save.evf.gz format. From Stratus but not supported by Stratus, runs on Stratus Continuum (HP PA-RISC) and VOS Release 14.3.0 or later, fully functional. (Perl 5.8.0 as of August 2002) Also other software available.

VxWorks

(No known Perl binary distributions)

(No known Perl ports at all, to be more exact.)

WinCE / Pocket PC

Windows 3.1

Win95 / Win98 / WinME / WinNT / Win2000/W2K / WinXP (Win32)

Try first win32.perl.org.

Starting from Perl 5.005 the Win32 support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution. But if you insist on a binary:

  • ActivePerl (Perl for Win32, Perl for ISAPI, PerlScript, Perl Package Manager)
  • Strawberry Perl, A 100% Open Source CPAN-capable Perl for Windows that works exactly the same as Perl everywhere else (includes Perl for Win32, MinGW, dmake, CPAN preconfigured, libwin32, Win32::API, PPM, PAR, Expat/XML::Parser).
  • Apache/Perl (binaries for both Perl-5.6/Apache-1.0/mod_perl-1 and Perl-5.8/Apache-2/mod_perl-2)
  • IndigoPerl (Perl for Win32, integrated Apache webserver, GUI Package Manager)
  • OptiPerl (CGI and console script, IDE with syntax highlighting and debugger, query editor, emulated web server, code completion, hints, context sensitive help, code librarian, many included tools)
  • PXPerl (compiled with Intel C++ Compiler for maximum performance, lots of modules already installed, with Pugs and Parrot binaries, lets you install any other module from CPAN))

These two are very obsolete and no more maintained or updated. Use only if you know that you need these.

If you want to compile Perl for Win32 yourself, only the Microsoft Visual C/C++ is actively supported, but if you want to pay for your compiler the also Borland C++ Builder Studio should work reasonably well. MinGW is a free option that also has been known to work. The Open Watcom, the Digital Mars, and lcc compiler are available (the last one for non-commercial use only), but there are no reports of Perl being built with them (patches welcomed by perl5-porters).

(Especially) if you are accustomed to Windows you might be interested in various IDEs for Perl, in alphabetical order:

(see also the perlfaq3 Is there an IDE or Windows Perl Editor?, or just editors (Perl programs are just plain text so any editor will do).

CodeWright | Crimson | Elvis | GNU Emacs | Epsilon | gVim | MultiEdit | PFE | SlickEdit | UltraEdit | Vile | vim | Zeus XEMacs

or shell environments (the first three are full UNIX tool environments, tcsh and zsh are just the shell).

Cygwin bash | MKS ksh | tcsh | (csh/tcsh book) (zsh in general)

See also the EPIC project for Eclipse Perl plugins.

There is a Windows port of Perl 5 to Japanese encodings (EUC and Shift-JIS):

MinGW is a collection of header files and import libraries that allow one to use GCC and produce native Windows32 programs.

These are ports of UNIX-like environments for Win32, which are useful for compiling Perl (and at least Cygwin contains Perl as an installable package).

IBM z/OS (OS/390)

Since OS/390 R2.3 Perl 5.004_03 shipped as a standard component.

Starting from Perl 5.005_02 the OS/390 (also known as OS/390, also known as Open Edition, also known as MVS) support has been integrated to the Perl standard source code distribution.

NOTE! As of June 2006, IBM has an official version of Perl 5.8.7 for z/OS.

NOTE! As of November 2003, the Perl 5.8.1 source builds and tests at better than 99% on z/OS (OS/390). (The previous 5.6.x versions don't work well on EBCDIC platforms, and 5.8.1 builds better than 5.8.0 did.)

See also the following:

Disclaimer

The inclusion or exclusion of any site, application, or product does not represent any special endorsement or discrimination, nor is any attempt at comprehensiveness made, just an educated guess at which ones could possibly be useful.

Installing software is always a security risk, installing binary distributions doubly so.

None of the CPAN maintainers, Perl developers or contributors, or any entities publishing this list in any media, will be liable for any damage caused by the transfer, storage, installation, or use of these distributions. It's your risk alone.

The same in legalese:

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR DISTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE TO ANY PARTY FOR DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, ITS DOCUMENTATION, OR ANY DERIVATIVES THEREOF, EVEN IF THE AUTHORS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ON AN ``AS IS'' BASIS, AND THE AUTHORS AND DISTRIBUTORS HAVE NO OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE MAINTENANCE, SUPPORT, UPDATES, ENHANCEMENTS, OR MODIFICATIONS.

Corrections? Additions? Suggestions? Please contact cpan@perl.org. Other questions? See the CPAN FAQ.

Copyright Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi> 1998-2007 All Rights Reserved.