Prepare Perl for compilation: ./configure.gnu --prefix=/usr If you want more control over the way Perl sets itself up to be built, you can run the interactive Configure script instead and modify the way Perl is built. If you think you can live with the (sensible) defaults Perl auto-detects, then just use the command listed above. Compile the package: make This package has a test suite available which can perform a number of checks to ensure it built correctly. Should you choose to run it, you first have to create a basic /etc/hosts file, needed by a couple of tests to resolve the name localhost: echo "127.0.0.1 localhost $(hostname)" > /etc/hosts Now run the tests, if you wish: make test And install the package: make install