You seem to be running on an environment that may not have mecab-config available. This script uses mecab-config to auto-probe 1. The version string of libmecab that you are building Text::MeCab against. (e.g. 0.90) 2. Additional compiler flags that you may have built libmecab with, and 3. Additional linker flags that you may have build libmecab with. Since we can't auto-probe, you should specify the above three to proceed with compilation: Version of libmecab that you are compiling against (e.g. 0.90)? (REQUIRED) [] no version specified! cowardly refusing to proceed. at tools/probe_mecab.pl line 36. ...propagated at Makefile.PL line 21.