Recently, I uninstalled the version of Perl (5.8.1) that came with my SuSE 9.0 distribution and installed Active Perl 5.8.4. Scripts worked fine and when I checked the @INC array it included paths specific to ActivePerl --which to me seemed to indicate ActivePerl was safely installed and the old version gone. On several occasions since then, however, when I install another RPM (unrelated to perl) using YaST, it insists on first installing the old perl package . . . and won't take no for an answer! Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Thanks!

"when I install another RPM (unrelated to perl) using YaST, it insists on first installing the old perl package . . . and won't take no for an answer! "

Switch to installing using the command line rpm. First use the rpm --test option to check what dependencies are missing.
rpm --test -i
If the only missing dependencies are perl then install the package with the nodeps option.
rpm --nodeps -i

See man rpm

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Steve Stites

Thanks Steve. The --nodeps option does the trick.