This is a pre-test of a binary release of Perl v5.8.2 on OS/2. All tests
of the Perl proper pass. [Two bugs I know of are not fixed.] Out of 134
included distributions, 4 or 5 are failing some of their tests [when I write
a summary, it will be available in README.2nd].

plREADME.zip README.os2, Changes.OS2 and latest patches
plINSTL0.zip Executables for installator (should not change very often)
plINSTAL.zip Data for installator
perl_exc.zip Perl VIO and PM executables (dynamically linked)
perl_mlb.zip Main Perl library
perl_sh.zip Pdksh
perl_aou.zip Perl_ VIO executable (statically linked)
perl_blb.zip Tools to compile Perl modules
perl_inf.zip Perl manual in .INF format
perl_mam.zip Manpages for Perl modules
perl_man.zip Manpages for Perl and utilities
perl_pod.zip Source for Perl documentation
perl_ste.zip Additional Perl modules
perl_utl.zip Executables for Perl utilities

perlSUPP.zip Additional DLL needed to use some modules, and perl_.exe
Install them manually if you do not have them on
your system.

Minimal download for automatic installation:
plINSTL0.zip plINSTAL.zip perl_exc.zip

For automatic installation:
a) Do
unzip plINS*.zip
Do not unzip the rest!

b) Start install.exe, read through the invitation screen, then
pick up the components which correspond to zips you downloaded.

c) Edit the fields (all 11 of them!) to your pleasure. Take
time to read descriptions of components as well.

d) Install

(sometimes the edit_cfg.cmd window is shown in
background: you may need to Control-Esc to this window if
installation "hangs" showing this file).

e) Edit \\ to // in the "Location" field of the WWW objects in
the folder (if you plan to use them): double click + edit works on
Warp3, on Warp4 you probably need to Alt-Double-Click.

f) Keep in mind that sometimes SoftInstaller will uppercase a
chunk of your config.sys. Keep an eye on this file after a
binary install, notorious case-sensitive entries are TERM and
RCSINIT.

g) The script testperl.cmd may advice you about what is bad
with your installation (an icon is installed in the Perl folder).

"Suspicious entries" are just entries with no intelligent validator
written yet.

h) If error happens during running edit_cfg.cmd - but see "d" -
and you managed to make SoftInstaller to ignore this error,
you may want to rerun edit_cfg.cmd later. Syntax is

edit_cfg.cmd perl.dll-dir perllib-dir perl.exe-dir

say,

edit_cfg.cmd c:\emx\dll c:/perllib/lib c:\emx\bin

Manual installation:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Follow README.os2 (or OS/2 section in .INF file)

Send your remarks to [email protected]

The use of a camel image in conjunction with Perl is a trademark of
O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.

Older versions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Different Perl OS/2 releases may coexist on the same machine - if you rename
executables so that there is no conflict of names (to enable this names of DLLs
are mungled to become something like perlE0AC.dll).

As a drawback, backward compatibility with older modules which
contained DLLs is awkward (see README.os2, or `view perl perlos2').