Has Pinto become broken for new installs? - bootstrapped cpanm cannot find Pinto

[Intrepid]

Hi Monks and Nuns. Here's another node that's not about perl coding per se but is instead about perl infrastructure/tool setup/installation.

Attempting to install Pinto on Linux - seeing error "! Couldn't find module or a distribution Pinto"

I am trying to bootstrap the Pinto perl module management application on a machine running Debian Gnu/Linux. I have already had Pinto running on a different (Cygwin Perl) system for some months, so I thought I knew my way around the setup. But over the last two days I've repeatedly gotten the same error in the terminal when trying to set up:

! Couldn't find module or a distribution Pinto

This error message is (obviously?) coming from cpanm, which the Pinto setup script bootstraps. I see this error manifests when cpanm attempts to download Pinto and its dependencies from the online repository its author had set up. That repo has the url https://www.stratopan.com/thaljef/OpenSource/pinto-release . It looks like a network problem, doesn't it? So when I do

$ ping -c4 stratopan.com

... I get no replies to my ping, although the domain does resolve to 138.68.43.143. But when I point a browser at https://www.stratopan.com I land on an active home page, although Firefox warns me about expired certificates.

It's a lot to ask maybe, but could a reader just try it (setting up Pinto)? It's a one-line command:

$ curl -L http://getpinto.stratopan.com | bash

Very grateful thanks for applying some brain-power / knowledge to this problem I'm having. And, PS, wouldn't it be theoretically possible to copy over all the module dependencies from my CygPerl installation of Pinto to the Linux machine? I've looked, but I can't find a set-aside heirarchy of such modules.

Feb 03, 2026 at 18:45 UTC

[Corion]

What steps have you taken beyond posting here to diagnose the problem?

When I visit the URL you posted, my browser tells me that the certificate for stratopan.com has expired.

This would explain why cpanm has a problem downloading from there.

Have you tried installing Pinto from Pinto?

[stevieb]

A Perl module management system that appears out of date, with numerous open issues and with a broken security certificate may not be a good path forward.

Perhaps you could share what it is that you're trying to accomplish. There's very likely an alternate approach that you could use.

For example, I see you're using Linux, so with perlbrew, you can set up an instance exactly how you like, then simply clone the entire environment for consistency.

[Intrepid]

   Perhaps you could share what it is that you're trying to accomplish. … so with perlbrew, you can set up an instance exactly how you like …

My intention was to build a stack of the modules that are required at runtime by Dist::Zilla, which has many, many dependencies, in a separate environment. Because I've used Pinto on this CygPerl installation of mine to good effect, i.e. no issues, Pinto was my first thought. And then I got sucked in to finding out why I couldn't install Pinto now on the Linux box.

Perlbrew is very likely my next stop on this journey. The Linux system in question doesn't have Perlbrew installed yet, but another Linux system I maintain does, so I won't be completely without experience if I try that.

Thanks

Feb 04, 2026 at 19:08 UTC

[NERDVANA]

Shameless plug for my new CPAN::InGit. It solves roughly the same problem as Pinto, but with a drastically simpler strategy of just adding all the dist files to a git repo and then serving branches of that repo as individual darkpans. Fair warning, the module and its commandline tools are still pretty rough around the edges. But, it's good enough for production use of managing the modules used by my clients' projects.

[choroba]

This question has been crossposted to SuperUser at StackExchange. While crossposting is allowed, it's considered polite to announce it to prevent people not attending the other site from hacking on a solution to a problem that has been meanwhile solved at the other end of the internets already.

[Intrepid]

Oi! choroba is everywhere! [ :-) ]. Yes, I did crosspost. I should have confessed announced that. Thanks choroba. I'll follow the customary protocol next time (if there is a next time).

    — Soren
Feb 04, 2026 at 02:04 UTC

[bliako]

FYI, fedora linux can install perl modules for *system perl* via its own package manager (dnf). For example, I can do

dnf search pinto
dnf install perl-Pinto.noarch

(Perl packages are prefixed by perl- TeX packages by texlive-, etc.)

Having said all that, and as a warning to other readers: it is best to have own perl version installed via perlbrew so as to keep own perl and its installed packages separate from system perl and its own packages. System perl is not always updated to the latest as a precaution against incompatibilities etc. So, installing perl modules via linux's package manager, i.e. for the system perl, I assume that it has no danger to break one's system because the linux distribution people must have done their tests and allowed for the specific version to be installed via OS package manager. What is prone to breaking the system is to NOT having a separate perl (via perlbrew) but use the system perl AND installing packages (and dependencies!) via cpan/cpanm (for the system perl). The latter will not know what packages the OS perl should not have upgraded etc. and will sooner or later break the system with one-too-many upgrade. Just a warning to new readers. (I learned this here at PerlMonks myself)