use Perl

#0  0x402ba038 in pthread_getspecific () from /lib/libpthread.so.0
#1  0x0809e795 in Perl_safesysmalloc ()
#2  0x40551b19 in pe_sys_multiplex () from /home/knoppix/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8
.8/i686-linux/auto/Event/Event.so

gdb stacktrace.

Even building SDL with --enable-threads=no --enable-pthreads=no isn't enough. It'll just you you with a libSDL.so with dangling references to the pthreads librarty, that SDL_Perl won't be able to link to and the other SDL libs won't be able to build against. Joy of joys. I love it when something doesn't work, so you do the obvious thing, but that doesn't work, so you go to fix that... fucking yak shaving.

The most important SDL APIs on Unix have ifdefs to work without threads, but some just plain don't. You need to disable them:

./configure --enable-threads=no --enable-pthreads=no --enable-audio=no --enable-timers=no

I did a --prefix=/usr also but you probably want to keep the default of /usr/local and then build other stuff explicitly against that so you don't piss apt off and never get another system update again. Speaking of broken ass shit...

Then go get SDL_ttf-2.0.9.tar.gz and SDL_image-1.2.6.tar.gz and rebuild those. Make sure they're finding (use --includedir and --libdir) and using your hobbled libSDL.so, whereever you installed it. They should find the sdl-config command and use it to pick up on the lack of -lpthread. Build and install those.

SDL_Perl uses one of those new build systems that don't work right on Linux and don't have a chance in hell of working on anything else. There are a dozen build bug reports on rt.cpan.org for the thing, and I added a new one: it installs the XS .so files in ~usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.*.*/i686-linux/auto/src/SDL and SDL_Perl, adding a superfluous "/src" that keeps it from being found. You'll have to cd into your Perl's lib directory, find those two SDL directories, and copy them up a level, if you have this same problem. And remember kids, writing build systems is hard, so just fuckin' use MakeMaker and spare us all the grief.

But first you need to edit Build.PL and pull out mention of SDL_mixer, SDL_net, and SDL_timer -- the same modules we removed support for in the ./configure in the SDL source. So, if you can get it to go, build SDL_Perl:

perl Build.PL
./Build
./Build install

Then go fix the miss-installed .so files... then maybe, with some luck and probably about a dozen other "how to make this crap work right" tutorials like this one, you'll have an SDL that doesn't try to bloody pull in libpthread and make your Perl blow up! Yay!

-scott