In a Debian installation, not all directories in @INC need exist (the site directories for example are created on demand). Suggested by Joey Hess . diff -Naur --exclude=debian perl-5.8.8.orig/lib/Pod/Perldoc.pm perl-5.8.8/lib/Pod/Perldoc.pm --- perl-5.8.8.orig/lib/Pod/Perldoc.pm 2004-12-29 23:15:33.000000000 +1100 +++ perl-5.8.8/lib/Pod/Perldoc.pm 2006-02-02 23:38:49.000000000 +1100 @@ -1533,6 +1533,7 @@ $self->{'target'} = (splitdir $s)[-1]; # XXX: why not use File::Basename? for ($i=0; $i<@dirs; $i++) { $dir = $dirs[$i]; + next unless -d $dir; # some dirs in @INC are optional ($dir = VMS::Filespec::unixpath($dir)) =~ s!/\z!! if IS_VMS; if ( (! $self->opt_m && ( $ret = $self->check_file($dir,"$s.pod"))) or ( $ret = $self->check_file($dir,"$s.pm"))