On Thu, 7 May 1998 09:10:59 -0400 (EDT), 
  Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> writes:

>        I recently returned to the NetBSD camp installing 1.3.1 on my
>5000/25.  One of the required bits of software was perl, so I set about
>making 5.004_04 work.  After a few abortative attempts I finally got it
>to compile.  Compiling is now easy, see below where I attached my copy
>of the hints/netbsd.sh file from perl modified to compile on pmax out
>of the box.

Um, I think the precompiled pkg version works just fine.  But to get
the dl_* functions to work you also need ld.elf_so, which is in
-current, not 1.3.1.  However, I've been using a 1.3.1 system withn
ld.elf_so since March and it works fine for me. That's the box I used
to build the precompiled pkg binaries, in fact.

I don't know who `didnt understand' the ld flags and -Bforcearchive,
but the -Bforcearchive hasn't been supported in the GNU tools for
years.  The simple on/off toggle was replaced with two positional
flags, which enable or disable forced inclusion for following files.
Those changes have been talked to death, elsewhere.

But all a.out ports are switching to the newer LD sometime soon.  so
it might be worth updating Perl's hints/netbsd.sh whenver that happens.