I've got a perl 5.6.1 installation on debian 2.4.23 that seems to fail many many tests when I try to install packages. ... What's the best way to find out why it's failing so many tests...
I'd recommend examining the tests themselves and work your way through each failing case to see what the cause is. You'll either spot a common cause or determine that it was just coincidental that so many tests were failing.
Exit from the CPAN installer and find the place where it caches the build files or download the tar distributions and extract the files.
Then go through the build process manually and confirm that the tests are failing. Next examine the code being executed by the tests, and if necessary run it in the debugger to determine exactly where it is failing.
Sometimes the cause will be readily apparent. Other times it will be a dependency on a specific version of a module or poor backwards compatibility with older versions of Perl (such as 5.6.1), and in either case the module author failed to include checks or appropriate dependency requirements.
The biggest challenge you'll face is that the majority of test suites supplied with Perl modules aren't written for readability, understandability, or ease of debugging. They're typically terse, and assume existing familiarity with the module.
-Tom
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