Well on my Knoppix 3.3 it did get alot of other stuff

The following extra packages will be installed:
libdb4.2 libperl5.8 perl perl-base perl-modules
Suggested packages:
libterm-readline-perl-perl
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libdb4.2 perl-doc
The following packages will be upgraded
libperl5.8 perl perl-base perl-modules
4 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 863 not upgraded.
Inst perl-modules [5.8.2-2] (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing) []
Inst libdb4.2 (4.2.52-16 Debian:testing) []
Inst perl [5.8.2-2] (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing) []
Inst libperl5.8 [5.8.2-2] (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing) []
Inst perl-base [5.8.2-2] (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing)
Conf perl-base (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing)
Inst perl-doc (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing)
Conf libdb4.2 (4.2.52-16 Debian:testing)
Conf perl (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing)
Conf perl-modules (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing)
Conf libperl5.8 (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing)
Conf perl-doc (5.8.4-2 Debian:testing)

But it didnt break X server.

Knoppix 3.6 has perl-doc installed.

I don-t know if it is an option to use 3.3 or 3.6, but otherwise the hold trick might do it but
thats a lot of fiddling.