Hello everyone! First, let me start off by saying I am no Linux guru and I am definitely no Perl expert, so I apologize if these are dumb questions or if I don't provide enough information... Let me preface this post with a little backstory!

I want to test Request Tracker for my IT team to use. It looks promising and it looks like what we need. That being said, this install has been an absolute nightmare. The guides are very hit and miss, the other walkthroughs that I've been able to google have only been partially accurate... It's been a very frustrating time. I know, most people would have walked away from it at this point, but I'm stubborn and now I'm determined to make it work - even if we don't go forward using it. I HAVE been able to piece together a complete walk through, which is nice, and it gives me the base install. In order to get what I feel like I need to make this work for my environment, I need to have a few of their add-ins installed, and that's where my trouble comes in...

Example - Here is an example of what I'm trying to get installed. Initially, when I ran the perl Makefile.PL command, I got the error listed in the title. After digging for a few days, I was able to find this on another post in the RT forums:

$ sudo apt-get install libgd-dev libgraphviz-dev graphviz autoconf apache2 libapache2-mod-fcgid slapd ldap-utils expat openssl libssl-dev # Install standalone Perl for RT $ wget http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.26.3.tar.gz $ tar -xzf perl-5.26.3.tar.gz $ cd perl-5.26.3 $ sudo ./Configure -des -Dprefix=/opt/perl5 $ sudo make $ sudo make test $ sudo make install # Use new Perl install: $ export PATH=/opt/perl5/bin:$PATH $ which Perl # Install Meta CPAN $ wget https://cpan.metacpan.org/authors/id/M/MI/MIYAGAWA/App-cpanminus-1.7044.tar.gz $ /opt/perl5/bin/perl Makefile.PL $ make $ make test $ sudo make install # Tell RT to use metacpan $ export RT_FIX_DEPS_CMD='/opt/perl5/bin/cpanm --sudo --notest' # Configure RT $ ./configure --enable-gd --enable-graphviz 

# CD into App-cpanminus-1.7044.tar.gz $ cd App-cpanminus-1.7044.tar.gz # Run perl Makefile.PL $ perl Makefile.PL 

would resolve that? Or am I mistaken?

I can run the perl Makefile.PL in the above directory, but then to continue the steps for the add-in (Example link from above), when I get to the make initdb command, I get a totally different error:
make: *** No rule to make target \initialize-database’.? Stop.`

Which completely stops me again... which is why I'm hoping if I can get the initial error resolved, the rest of this will work like it should. There are about a dozen add-ins that I'd like to add, but if I can't get past any of this, then it's a moot point. I know I should give up and look for something else, but my company is in the middle of a divestiture, and I need something to help cover my US sites until we are completely integrated into the new parent company.

Thank you in advance for any advice or suggestions!

submitted by /u/IT_Guy_In_TN
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RT::Extension::HelpDesk

Default Help desk configuration for Request Tracker

^MetaCPAN

The RequireExplicitInclusion policy will complain about modules that you're using but didn't specifically include. For example:

use Test::More; sub test_something { local $Test::Builder::Level = $Test::Builder::Level + 1; return is( ... ); } 

Ideally you could tell the policy that Test::More brings in Test::Builder but until then you can now do this:

[Modules::RequireExplicitInclusion] ignore_modules = Test::Builder 

Perl::Critic::Policy::Modules::RequireExplicitInclusion

Perl::Critic plugin for stricter subroutine checking

^MetaCPAN

Running a Perl script with -C seems to enable most of the UTF-8 stuff I would want. How do I get the same functionality inside of a Perl script? Perlrun mentions putting it on the shebang line, but that doesn't work above v5.10?

The utf8::all module also seems to do what I want, but it's not a core module. Is there a simple way in core Perl to just say "turn on UTF8 pretty much everywhere"?

submitted by /u/scottchiefbaker
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I've been using perl for 35+ years. As a sysadmin (and hobbyist, tool developer, whatever) it's long been my go-to language for the vast majority of my development efforts.

Over that time I've definitely seen it fading. But in the past year I've seen more concerning issues. The meta cpan website is often sluggish, and right at the moment, it's partly offline (some pages work, others, perhaps less frequently used, are offline).

Some modern Linux distros ship with a crappy set of modules. Like, no LWP. And my experience getting modules for basic functionality is not encouraging. It's very unfortunate for example that LWP doesn't know how to find installed web CAs on standard Linux distributions. Sure, I can make it work, but things just seem to be getting more and more fiddly for basic common functionality.

I've coded python a bit here and there. I've never cared for the language, but most of these concerns are surface and ultimately irrelevant, if the day-to-day experience is better than perl. And yeah, there's a lot to not like about python's day-to-day experience. The multiple confusing approaches to virtual environments and the necessity of understanding them to operate sucks. But when it comes down to it, any language style or design dislike I may have pales in comparison to the question: "is the language sufficiently supported?"

For the first time in the long history of doom-saying about perl, I'm beginning to have doubts if the answer to that question is still "yes". But maybe it's just the frustration of this one particular evening (temporary web problems while trying to find a well-supported multi-platform approach to filesystem events notification that can seamlessly work with the select() call).

submitted by /u/thomasafine
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