FAQ about open source environments

Perl interpreter

Perl, currently at version 5.8.  UNIX, Linux and Mac OS all have built-in Perl interpreter. You can type: perl -V to check whether your system already has a Perl-interpreter and its version.  For Windows system, you need to download from perl.com or other web sites to install it. 

MySQL database server

MySQL, currently at version 5.  You may have OS coming with MySQL database with old version e.g. version 3.23 or version 4.1.  We recommend you use version 4 and above. Please visit www.mysql.com to get more information about MySQL database.

DBI and DBD driver

In order for MySQL database server communicates with Apache web server, you need to install perl DBI and DBD-MySQL.  If you use other databases servers other than MySQL, you need to install Perl-DBI and specific DBD driver for your database server.