problems loading languages

Hi folks:

I am doing a fresh install of 8.2.4 and have been having problems with language
support.

This is what I know:

- pg has been configured --with perl
- the libdir is /usr/lib
- there are plpgsql.so and plperl.so in the libdir
- I get this:

postgres=# create language plperl;
ERROR:  could not access file "$libdir/plperl": No such file or directory

but other languages work fine:

postgres=# create language plpgsql;
CREATE LANGUAGE

My end goal is to be able to load the following function into template1:

CREATE FUNCTION plperl_call_handler() RETURNS language_handler
    AS '$libdir/plperl', 'plperl_call_handler'
    LANGUAGE c;

At least that's what the developers are telling me. This also gets the error
about $libdir/plperl. Any ideas about what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks so much!
Mija