+
+----
+
+/etc/ikiwiki/auto.setup tries to get abs_path of a non-existent
+"repository" path (in ikiwiki-makerepo), and that doesn't work in my perl:
+
+<pre>
+[mort@localhost ~]$ perl -e 'use Cwd q{abs_path}; print abs_path("/var")'
+/var[mort@localhost ~]$ perl -e 'use Cwd q{abs_path}; print abs_path("/abcde")'
+[mort@localhost ~]$
+</pre>
+
+Because of this, /etc/ikiwiki/auto.setup fails:
+
+<pre>
+$ ikiwiki -setup /etc/ikiwiki/auto.setup
+What will the wiki be named? wiki
+What revision control system to use? git
+What wiki user (or openid) will be admin? mort
+
+
+Setting up wiki ...
+internal error finding repository abs_path
+/etc/ikiwiki/auto.setup: failed to set up the repository with ikiwiki-makerepo
+
+usage: ikiwiki [options] source dest
+ ikiwiki --setup configfile
+$ perl -v
+
+This is perl, v5.8.8 built for i386-linux-thread-multi
+(with 2 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)
+
+Copyright 1987-2007, Larry Wall
+
+Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the
+GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.
+
+Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on
+this system using "man perl" or "perldoc perl". If you have access to the
+Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Page.
+
+$
+</pre>
+
+Can't ikiwiki's "make test" perhaps test for this, so that one knows something will go wrong?
+-- Ivan Z.
+
+> FWIW, I tried the same thing with perl 5.8.8 from Debian etch, and its
+> Cwd does not have the problem. But I've modified `ikiwiki-makerepo` to
+> avoid using `abs_path` this way anyhow. --[[Joey]]
+
+Thank you! I'm not a Perl programmer, so what's your opinion: is this behavior a violation of the specification of abs_path and I should report it to [ALTLinux](http://bugs.altlinux.org) (the distro)? --Ivan Z.
+
+> That is not entirely clear to me from the documentation. It doesn't
+> say the path has to exist, but doesn't say it cannot either. --[[Joey]]
+
+I am experiencing the same problem "/etc/ikiwiki/custom: failed to set up the repository with ikiwiki-makerepo
+" on Debian squeeze with perl5.10.0. Upgrading to ikiwiki 3.10 fixes it. -- [Albert](http://www.docunext.com/)
+
+----
+
+Just a note, perl 5.10 isn't packaged as part of RHEL or thus CentOS nor EPEL,
+so it's not especially trivial to satisfy that requirement for ikiwiki on
+those platforms, without backporting it from Fedora or building from source.
+However, I have an ikiwiki 3.20100403 running on RHEL-4 supplied 5.8.8 without
+(seemingly too much) complaint. How strong is the 5.10 requirement? what
+precicely breaks without it? -- [[Jon]]
+
+> I don't remember what was the specific problem with perl 5.8.8. All I can
+> find is some taint checking bugs, which are currently worked around by
+> taint checking being disabled. --[[Joey]]