If you got [install_docs] Error 255 when compiling PARSEC for sniper under Ubuntu 14.04

[Yi Xiang]

The error message is: POD document had syntax errors at /usr/bin/pod2man line 71. 

I got the same problem and it seems that PARSEC is not compatible with the perl version of Ubuntu 14.04. (pod2man is inculded in perl-module)

Thus you can avoid this error by downgrading perl for Ubuntu.  

Just download perl, perl-base and perl-module of version 5.14.2-21 from Ubuntu Launchpad and force install with "sudo dpkg --force-all -i perl*". 

After that you should be able to compile PARSEC with no problem.

After compiling you can restore your perl to the latest version.

[leas63]

A helpful post I found for installing multiple pearl versions:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22934080/how-to-downgrade-to-perl-5-10-1

[Panitan Wongse-ammat]

Does anyone know how to restore your perl to the latest version after you run the "sudo dpkg --force-all -i perl*"?

[Panitan Wongse-ammat]

I would recommend that other users should follow the suggestion from Lokesh Siddhu I attached below.

Hello All

As pointed out the there is a problem in the perl version. And we should use a previous version of perl to do the "make". I did the following steps.

1. Downloaded perl  perl-5.14.2.tar.gz from http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/
2. Installed perl as per the instructions. Here: http://perlmaven.com/how-to-build-perl-from-source-code
3. In the benchmarks folder editted parsec/parsec-2.1/pkgs/libs/ssl/src/util/pod2mantest.
   Made pod2man=/home/siddhulokesh/localperl/bin
4. In the benchmarks folder, did make clean and then ran make. You can also do make on individual benchmarkslike make -C splash2, make -C npb, make -C cpu2006, make -C parsec
   
5. Tested that it runs fine for the following commands:
1. ./run-sniper -p splash2-fft -i test -n 4 -c gainestown
2. ./run-sniper --benchmarks=splash2-fft-test-4 -c gainestown--no-roi
3. ./run-sniper --benchmarks=splash2-fft-test-1,splash2-fft-test-1,splash2-fft-test-1,splash2-fft-test-1 -c gainestown --no-roi

4. ./run-sniper --benchmark=parsec-blackscholes-simsmall-8 -n 4 --no-roi
   

Thanks
Lokesh Siddhu