I have installed Perl 5.6.1 on a Raq 4. Initially, this messed up the Cobalt control panel, but after some debugging, I was able to fix this problem. There are some Cobalt specific modules that run the CP. When you compile your own perl, the include paths get changed, thus no longer including these modules. After relocating the modules to the 5.6.1 install directory, I was able to restore my Control Panel and Admin interface.

I was wondering if anybody else had upgraded perl? If so, are there any additional caveats to be aware of.

Also, if the demand is there ... I can provide a step-by-step guide on how to update your perl install.

We needed to install the update to take advantage of some of the new C features incorporated into 5.6.

When upgrading from perl 5.005 to perl 5.6.1, you can specify to keep the old include directories, and to compile perl 5.6.1 with binary compatibilities for perl 5.005 modules.

This way, you don't have to reinstall any modules. However, I don't know the exact configuration options to do this when installing perl. I do know that it's possible.

Another option is to just upgrade to 5.6.1, find out what modules you lost, and reinstall them, although it's not a good idea to do on a production server. :)

My experience with a list of modules to upgrade is here

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=15047&highlight=5.6.1