I'm new to linux coding and have just been given an account on a server at work. I don't have sudo permissions. For some unknown reason, the 'screen' program has suddenly stopped working. Every time I try to open a screen session I get the following error

Can't locate local/lib.pm in @INC (you may need to install the local::lib module) (@INC contains: /home/user/perl5/lib/perl5/x86_64-linux-thread-multi /home/user/perl5/lib/perl5 /home/user/miniconda3/lib/site_perl/5.26.2/x86_64-linux-thread-multi /home/user/miniconda3/lib/site_perl/5.26.2 /home/user/miniconda3/lib/5.26.2/x86_64-linux-thread-multi /home/user/miniconda3/lib/5.26.2 .). BEGIN failed--compilation aborted.

I've tried opening up my .bash_profile and .bashrc to delete any lines referring to perl or the local::lib, and I don't have permissions to install the local::lib myself. I've tried navigating to the directories listed in the error message but they also don't exist. I also tried reinstalling perl and screen into a conda environment but screen needs to be activated before the environment so I just got the same message. Both perl and screen are still installed as I can print the version.

I have no idea why screen suddenly stopped working as I don't think I did anything, and it was working perfectly fine for the first few weeks. Any ideas/help would be much appreciated!

CodePudding user response：

See @dave-mitchell's comments to what local::lib is, but as for how to solve the problem, you'll probably need to install local::lib yourself in your home directory. This does not require administrative access using the bootstrap method as outlined in the local::lib documentation: https://metacpan.org/pod/local::lib#The-bootstrapping-technique

Following that, cpanminus (cpanminus) should be able to install most perl modules using the --local-lib option as needed.

However, if this is simply a problem with screen itself not working, and you don't care about perl modules per se, then I would recommend installing tmux as an alternative to screen which is also possible to do without administrative privileges (see this superuser question) and is widely considered to be a superior option