Requirements

To run Sirobot you'll need these ingredients (see below for where to get them):

• Sirobot itself :-)
• Perl 5
• the perl libraries LWP, URI and Digest::MD5
• [optionally] the Curses library
• [optionally] a SSL library (needed for https support)

Where can I get the stuff?

Sirobot

Go to the download area, fetch the latest release, extract it and read the included INSTALL and README files.

Perl 5

Execute the following line in your shell to find out, if it is installed and working:
  perl -v

Search your distribution if it isn't or visit http://www.perl.com/

Perl libraries: LWP, Digest::MD5 and URI

LWP (also known as libwww-perl) and URI are two libraries for perl. They are used by Sirobot to do the low-level HTTP communication. Find it out:
  perl -le 'use LWP;print("LWP: ok ");'
  perl -le 'use URI;print("URI: ok ");'
  perl -le 'use Digest::MD5;print("Digest::MD5: ok ");'

If it says it couldn't locate <missingpackage> in @INC, it's probably not installed or at least misconfigured.

Almost every modern Perl distribution comes with LWP preinstalled or at least has an easy-to-install-package like RedHat 8 which ships with perl-libwww-perl-5.65-2.noarch.rpm and all the other stuff you need.

Digest::MD5 nowadays comes bundled with your Perl 5.8 package, so this should not create any problems for you, either.

If you need/want to install the package manually, check out the description below.

Curses [optionally]

The Curses library enables Sirobot to show progress bars and other useful informations in an appealing way (see screenshot). It consists of two parts: the original new Curses library for C ("ncurses", that one usually comes with your distribution) and the actual Perl Curses library.

a SSL library [optionally]

To use https (secure HTTP), you need an additional library that extends LWP's abilities. Sirobot doesn't use this library directly but let LWP do the work. Currently, there are 3 libraries available. Please refer to the README.SSL file included in the LWP package for details.

How to install a Perl library?

Ok, here's a brief description of how to install a Perl library manually in case you aren't blessed with precompiled packages or you want to upgrade to the latest version. A more detailed description can be found when you type the following command:
  perldoc CPAN

or visit CPAN.

Perl comes with a module that guides you through the installation of any package available through CPAN. It can be used interactively or in batch mode. We use interactive mode. Type:
  perl -MCPAN -e shell

If you use CPAN for the first time, you'll be asked a bunch of questions that ensure a proper configuration.

In interactive mode, you'll see a prompt ("cpan> "). Now type install <packagename> and watch the magic ;-). When asked if you want to also install other packages your package depends on, chose yes for automatic installation.