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/ The first 4 digits after the point of 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) In most cases, this module can be installed as all the others, by 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 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.