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I'm mainly a Perl programmer and as such entirely clueless about linux administration and politics, but i figure people here would be able to help me on this one. I'm working on a website that is being run on a CentOS 5.4 server, which seems to be stuck on Perl 5.8.8.

I know there are several guides and such out there on how to install it manually, but I'm wondering: Can i expect whoever maintains CentOS (I really have no clue about the sysadmin side.) to ever officially make Perl 5.10 (or higher) available for 5.4? If so, when?

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  • Just a note regarding CentOS and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (which CentOS is based on). They rarely make version changes to software, as doing so increases the risk of system problems during point upgrades (i.e. 5.4 -> 5.5). As such, there is virtually no chance of seeing Perl 5.10.x on CentOS/RHEL 5.x. You'll have to wait for th enext major release, 6.0, before you'll see critical software like Perl get upgraded. Jul 9, 2010 at 16:29

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CentOS follow RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux). RHEL 6 is on the way, which means that CentOS 6 will also be released in a few weeks (estimate).

I took a quick look at RHEL 6 repodata, and it seems that Perl will, in the new version, have version 5.10.1:

ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/rhel/beta/6/i386/os/Packages/ perl-5.10.1-106.el6.i686.rpm

Answer: Yes, you can expect it to be available in CentOS in a little while.

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  • Thanks for the answer and also for the explanation of the politics behind it! :)
    – Mithaldu
    Apr 27, 2010 at 12:23
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    Note: RHEL6 is currently in beta (free!) and based on past history is rather likely to be in beta for a good six months. It typically takes the CentOS team at least a month or two after a RHEL release (and I am talking about the 5.x point releases) to get the corresponding CentOS release out the door. I wouldn't bet on CentOS 6 being available until the November/December time-frame.
    – Ophidian
    Apr 27, 2010 at 12:42
  • Hm, a bit more than a little while. Thanks for the qualification of that timeframe. :)
    – Mithaldu
    Apr 27, 2010 at 15:26

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