hi,

fist of all thanks for giving it a try.
It seems that https is a thing now so we need some more dependencies.
i have pushed an update into the linked git repositories.

we need as dependancies

sudo apt-get install libssl1.0-dev zlib1g-dev

then we need to install ssl support for perl

cpanm IO::Socket::SSL

the issue with the modern perl is that 2017 is only available in perl5.26 with earlyer versions you can just use it without a date.
Alternatively you can check out my earlyer guide on how to install your local independant perl installation in your home directory.

I have then switched ( also in git ) the url of the steemd service to

https://rpc.steemliberator.com

wich seemed to work find.
But if you want more stable results you may want to think about running you local steemd node.

I had my nodes from this article

best regards
hoffmann