You do not need a compiler unless you want to install one of the bundled low-level interface modules, either Irman or Lirc. 1) Irman You need the libirman library, version 0.4.2. The newest version of libirman can be found at http://www.evation.com/libirman/ 2) Lirc You need lirc (or better: the lirc_client library and include files). The lirc homepage can be found at http://fsinfo.cs.uni-sb.de/~columbus/lirc Make sure the appripriate headers or libraries are where perl can find them.