Hi David,
Yes, Yocto is an option as our SDK is Yocto compatible.
Another option is to find an available and up-to-date package feed and add it to the opkg configuration. I'd suggest you look inside the BeagleBone community forums for this. Keep in mind that the BeagleBone community mostly uses the Angstrom distribution, not the Arago that comes with the TI SDK.
The third option is to find / cross-compile and manually add the needed packages if the ones you pointed in your post are the only ones needed. I remember there was a thread for cross-compiling Python and Perl for the Sitara AM335x. Here it is: http://e2e.ti.com/support/arm/sitara_arm/f/791/t/276844.aspx
Best regards,
Miroslav