Win32 Distributions

From Win32 Perl Wiki

A complete (eventually) list of all Win32 Perl Distributions.

Contents 1 Quick Comparison 1.1 Definitions 1.2 Distribution Order 1.3 Table of Comparisons 2 Perl Distributions 2.1 Strawberry Perl 2.2 Vanilla Perl 2.3 ActivePerl 2.4 CamelPack 2.5 SiePerl 2.6 PXPerl 2.7 nsPerl 3 Combination Distributions 3.1 IndigoPerl 3.2 Camelbox 3.3 Apache Perl 3.4 DeveloperSide.Net 3.5 Cygwin 3.6 Interix / Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX 3.7 XAMPP + Perl-Extension 3.8 Randy Kobes Perl 4 Under Development 4.1 Chocolate Perl

[edit] Quick Comparison

[edit] Definitions

• Name - Name of the Perl Distribution

• Perl - The version of Perl in this distribution

• Installer - Installer type (msi, exe, zip, bundled)

• ActivePerl - Is this distribution compatible with ActivePerl

• PPM - Does the distribution support PPM packages

• CPAN - Does the distribution support full (i.e. compiled modules) CPAN installation out of the box

• PAR - Is the distribution PAR-ready?

• Maturity - How developed is this distribution (experimental, concept, alpha, beta, stable)

• Support - Maximum level of support available (none -> author -> community -> commercial)

[edit] Distribution Order

Distributions are listed loosely in reverse chronological order based on their most recent release, from most recent release date to oldest release date, with planned or unreleased distributions listed at the end.

[edit] Table of Comparisons

Name	Perl Versions	Installer	ActivePerl	PPM	CPAN	PAR	Maturity	Support
Strawberry Perl	5.10.1 or 5.8.9	msi/zip	no	console	yes	yes	stable	community
Cygwin Perl	5.10.0	bundled	no	no	yes	no	stable	community
Vanilla Perl	5.10.0	exe	no	no	yes	no	experimental	none
ActivePerl	5.10.1 or 5.8.9	msi/zip	yes	gui	yes	yes	stable	commercial
Indigo Perl	"5.8.10" ???	zip	no	yes	no	???	stable	author
Camelbox	5.10.0	exe	no	no	yes	yes	experimental	community
SiePerl	5.8.8	exe	no	no	???	???	stable	???
XAMPP + Perl	5.10.0	exe/zip	plugin	plugin	same as AS	from PPM	stable	community
CamelPack	5.8.7	exe	yes	gui	yes	???	stable	author
PXPerl	5.8.7	exe	yes	no	yes	no	abandoned	none
DeveloperSite.Net	5.8.7	exe	no	no	no	no	stable	community
Apache Perl	5.8.7	exe	yes	yes	no	yes	stable	author
Randy Kobes	5.8.7	exe	yes	yes	no	yes	abandoned?	none
nsPerl	5.005_03	zip	no	no	no	no	abandoned	none
Chocolate Perl	TBA	exe	maybe	no	yes	yes	concept	n/a

[edit] Perl Distributions

Distributions and Installers that are primarily oriented around Perl.

[edit] Strawberry Perl

Strawberry Perl is intended as a variant of Vanilla Perl for experienced end-users.

It will provide a series of releases that come with Bundle::CPAN and some other improvements pre-installed (but only a relatively small number of them), for use by experienced Perl developers, and as a platform for CPAN authors to fix Win32 issues in their modules.

See Strawberry Perl for more information.

[edit] Vanilla Perl

Vanilla is an entirely experimental distribution that serves as a testing ground for issues related to Windows and the Perl code, and issues relating to the installation toolchain (CPAN.pm, et al).

Vanilla Perl is never expected to be useful for end users.

See Vanilla Perl for more information.

[edit] ActivePerl

The granddaddy of them all and still the most popular production Perl distribution, ActivePerl from ActiveState. Also natively available for x64 architecture.

ActivePerl Website

[edit] CamelPack

Installer for ActivePerl, Dev-C++, and nmake.

Historical Note: This distribution was created in only 2 days, and won the creator a "vertical Metre of beer".

Download here.

[edit] SiePerl

Built for Win32 by Siemens, contains several modules.

SiePerl Website

[edit] 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.

Historical Note: It was the creation and subsequent stalling of this distribution that led to the "Vertical Metre of Beer" competition which spawned both the CamelPack and Vanilla Perl.

[edit] nsPerl

"NetScape Perl"

nsPerl Website

This was produced by some employees of the old Netscape, but is now completely out of date.

[edit] Combination Distributions

Distributions that contain Perl in addition to a number of other diverse things.

[edit] IndigoPerl

A binary build of Perl, Apache and PHP for Windows.

Historical note: IndigoPerl was the first competitor to ActivePerl.

IndigoPerl Website

[edit] Camelbox

A complete build of Perl for 32-bit Windows that includes:

• A nice Windows installer that automatically downloads and installs the correct archive files
• All of the core Gtk2-Perl modules (Gtk2, Glib, Cairo), as well as their equivalent C libraries compiled for Windows.
• DBI and DBD::[mysql|Pg|SQLite|ODBC], support libraries and command line clients
• A working CPAN module
• Extra binaries, utilities, development libraries/headers for compiling even more Perl modules from CPAN
• Lots of Perl/GTK documenation in HTML format

all neatly packaged and ready to install.

Camelbox Homepage

[edit] Apache Perl

Has prebuilt binaries for two mod_perl environments.

• Perl 5.6.1, Apache 1.3.27, mod_perl-1.27

• Perl 5.8.7, Apache 2.0.54, mod_perl-2.0.1

[1]

[edit] DeveloperSide.Net

Compiled under VS.NET and includes the latest versions of Apache2, PHP, MySQL, OpenSSL, mod_perl, Apache::ASP, and a few other components.

DeveloperSide.Net Website

[edit] Cygwin

Cygwin is a port of popular open source GNU and UNIX tools to the Win32 platform and provides a Linux-like environment. A pre-built version of Perl is included in the Cygwin distribution.

See README.cygwin, or "perlcygwin" perldoc or man page.

From the Cygwin Setup only some Win32 perl packages are prebuilt: perl, libwin32, Win32::GUI, Win32::API, perl-Tk-804.027 (for Cygwin X11 only!), ExtUtils::Depends, ExtUtils::PkgConfig, perl_manpages.

The rest should build via CPAN out of the box.

Because Cygwin Perl is on a platform that is partly Linux-like and partly Windows, it has a tendency to suffer from corner case bugs in unexpected places.

[edit] Interix / Microsoft Windows Services for UNIX

See wikipedia: Interix, Windows Services for UNIX. Free download. Perl is available from Tool Warehouse repository.

[edit] XAMPP + Perl-Extension

Integrated package of Apache, MySQL, PHP, ... . Perl extension available (Perl, mod_perl, ppm, ...).

XAMPP for Windows Download

[edit] Randy Kobes Perl

A binary Perl installer by Randy Kobes. Keeps pace with current perl releases.

Based on ActivePerl so also supports ppm, which Randy provides his own ppm repository for.

Bundles apache2, mod_perl, mod_ssl, php, and some other popular modules.

UWinnipeg Perl Website

[edit] Under Development

These distributions are in conceptual or development stages and have not yet had a release yet.

[edit] Chocolate Perl

Chocolate Perl is intended as a variant of Vanilla Perl for beginner end-users.

It will bundle a large number of modules and utilities, but remains largely a concept without a firm specification as yet.

See Chocolate Perl for more information