a) Math::Pari is the PERL interface to the PARI part of GP/PARI (version 2.*). The info about GP/PARI is on http://www.parigp-home.de/ Interger part and the first 4 digits after the point in the version of Math::Pari reflect the latest version of GP/PARI it was tested with. The next paragraph is an excerpt from documentation inside Pari.pm: Package Math::Pari is a Perl interface to famous library PARI for numerical/scientific/number-theoretic calculations. It allows use of most PARI functions (>500) as Perl functions, and (almost) seamless merging of PARI and Perl data. b) This module includes a part written in C; thus it is requires a *fully* working Perl installation, including a C compiler which Perl knows about. Since prebuild configurations are typically broken (in many subtle ways), it is not supported unless your perl executable was build on your machine (or otherwise you show that you know what you are talking about ;-). Given this, in most cases, this module can be installed as all the others: perl -MCPAN -e shell CPAN> install Math::Pari or perl -MCPAN -e 'install Math::Pari' or (if you manually downloaded the archive) tar -zxfv Math-Pari-2.001200.tar.gz cd Math-Pari-2.001200 perl Makefile.PL && make && make test && make install Possible complications are addressed in the file INSTALL: x) Not having Net::FTP installed and working, and not having GP/PARI build directory "nearby" (as parent, kid or sibling); x) Failing compile or configuration: wrong assembler architecture, wrong paricfg.h (CLK_TCK etc.); x) the rest of it... IMPORTANT REMARK: If you try to compile with a different configuration, please run make realclean in between. Otherwise significant problems may arise. [A typical symptom: the symbol overflow cannot be found.] c) Due to the apparent recent breakage of PAUSE mirroring of my directories, CPAN may have not the latest-and-greatest version. :-( d) How the tests work Lowercase test scripts translate native GP/PARI tests from GP syntax to Perl syntax. You can get a better understanding of these translations by running the tests manually, as in perl t/all.t after install, or perl -Mblib t/all.t before install. Currently two subtests of t/nfields 'leak' PARI warnings. Until the test engine is taught to look-for/eat these warnings, they *must* appear. e) Reporting bugs/problems I need to see the output of perl Makefile.PL perl -V and the relevant messages "near the failure". elliptic.t subtest 41 often fails on GP/PARI itself, so currently I do not consider its failure to be a Math::Pari's bug. f) Documentation to this package is contained inside Pari.pm. After installing it is accessible by standard means, like perldoc Math::Pari man Math::Pari and possibly in other forms particular for your system. A copy of documentation of the PARI library in POD format is provided as well, access it as Math::libPARI: perldoc Math::libPARI man Math::libPARI Since many POD converters are too stupid/buggy to process these docs, an alternative Math::libPARI.dumb is provided; use as in perldoc Math::libPARI.dumb etc.