FC4 + yum, apt, CPAN, and repositories

[Robert Citek <rwcitek@alum.calberkeley.org>]

I finally have installed FC4. Now I need to install some perl  
modules.  The question I have is, how should I install them?

I can choose from a number of methods and repositories:

  1) yum as specified in fedora-release
  2) apt using freshrpms
  3) apt using rpmforge
  4) yum using rpmforge
  5) CPAN using the cpan shell
  6) download and install the source tarball from CPAN

Ideally, I'd like to use just one method to simplify administration  
and management of the packages.  However, this doesn't seem likely.   
 From what I've tried so far I've run into two major issues:

  1) a package exists in one repository and not the other, or is  
available via one method and not the other
  2) incompatible packages between the repositories

An example of the first case is the perl-Text-Shellwords package.  It  
is available via apt using rpmforge but not from freshrpms, nor via  
yum using the default repositories.

An example of the second case is the perl-GD package.  It is  
available via yum using the default repositories.  A newer version is  
available via apt from rpmforg.  However, the newer package is not  
built correctly.  That is, the example from 'perldoc GD' works with  
the old version and not the new.

Another example of the second case is when I try to upgrade the  
packages, I see a lot of "X conflicts with existing package Y"-type  
of errors.

My stream of questions are:
- should I stick to apt, yum, CPAN, or use some combination of methods?
- should I use just one repository or a mixture, and if a mixture,  
which ones?

Any thoughts, comments, solutions, or suggestions are gladly accepted.

Regards,
- Robert
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