perl - problem 'checksum mismatch' almost solved

[Uwe Dippel <udippel_(_at_)_uniten_(_dot_)_edu_(_dot_)_my>]

[You find this repeatedly in the archive]

Since I had this throughout the versions, including 3.8, I looked into
this a bit deeper:
cpan -MCPAN -e shell
and everything subsequent bombs out with a checksum mismatch.

Here is why, and how to solve it [and why some didn't experience it]:
0. It is a tar problem
1. run cpan fearlessly as you would.
When you hit checksum mismatch:
"I'd recommend removing
/root/.cpan/sources/foo/bar-2.0.tar.gz. Its MD5 checksum is incorrect."
simply exit cpan and 
mv /root/.cpan/sources/foo/bar.tar /root/.cpan/sources/foo/bar.tar.gz
(That is, mv the file without .gz to the file with .gz. It does exist; but
overwrite is okay !)
Start cpan again, until it bombs out. Rinse and repeat: exit - mv - cpan -
exit - mv -cpan.
Be intelligent and run 'install Bundle::CPAN' in cpan, because the fifths
or sixths install of the Bundle will install Compress-Zlib.
>From now on, cpan will not resort to the helper applications that you
defined earlier (tar, gunzip), but use its own Compress-Zlib.
>From here on everything works fine. Without any rinse && repeat.

A shortcut to this: you install p5-Compress-Zlib from the ports or
packages, and cpan will use this as its native application early on.
(Which explains why some have never experienced this problem: all those
who had it installed from ports or packages before attempting cpan).

Uwe,

who considers this 'almost' solved because he didn't look into the
underlying problem of gunzip/tar that manifests itself as long as
Compress-Zlib is unused