[Haskell-beginners] Haskell Platform: Troubleshooting package configuration errors?

[egarrulo]

On 14/06/13 23:00, Mateusz Kowalczyk wrote:
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> On 14/06/13 21:22, egarrulo wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>>
>> I'm trying to build the Haskell Platform 2013.2.0.0 (with required
>> GHC 7.6.3) on Debian GNU/Linux 6 (AKA Debian Squeeze).
>>
>> So far, I've stumbled upon some a few errors, but I've managed to
>> solve them and I have let the maintainers know. Now I'm stuck with
>> an error while configuring the "network" package (see the end of
>> this email). As such error has no accompanying diagnostics, I don't
>> know how I could fix it. Any suggestions? Thanks for your
>> attention.
>>
>> Have a nice day.
>>
>> -- ERROR MESSAGE STARTS HERE --
>> ************************************************** Building
>> network-2.4.1.2 "/home/egarrulo/bin/ghc/ghc-7.6.3/bin/ghc" "--make"
>> "Setup" "-o" "Setup" "-package" "Cabal-1.16.0" [1 of 1] Compiling
>> Main             ( Setup.hs, Setup.o ) Linking Setup ... "./Setup"
>> "configure" "--package-db=../../packages/package.conf.inplace"
>> "--prefix=/home/egarrulo/bin/haskell-platform/haskell-platform-2013.2.0.0"
>>   "--with-compiler=/home/egarrulo/bin/ghc/ghc-7.6.3/bin/ghc"
>> "--with-hc-pkg=/home/egarrulo/bin/ghc/ghc-7.6.3/bin/ghc-pkg"
>> "--with-hsc2hs=/home/egarrulo/bin/ghc/ghc-7.6.3/bin/hsc2hs"
>> "--with-happy=../happy-1.18.10/dist/build/happy/happy"
>> "--happy-options=--template=../happy-1.18.10"
>> "--with-alex=../alex-3.0.5/dist/build/alex/alex"
>> "--enable-library-profiling"
>> "--ghc-pkg-option=--package-conf=../../packages/package.conf.inplace"
>>   "--user" Configuring network-2.4.1.2...
>>
>> Error: Configuring the network-2.4.1.2 package failed make: ***
>> [build.stamp] Error 2
>>
>> -- ERROR MESSAGE ENDS HERE --
>>
>>
>>
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>>
> I think that the next logical step would be to configure the network
> package by hand and see what error comes up. `cabal unpack network'
> followed by `cabal configure' in the relevant directory should
> hopefully provide a more meaningful error.

Thanks for your suggestion. Indeed, I considered using "cabal", but 
since its Hackage page lists many dependencies, I gave up installing it 
by hand (something I did for the "alex" package to fix a build issue). 
Moreover, according to Hackage "cabal" depends on "network":

http://hackage.haskell.org/package/cabal-install

Therefore we would have a chicken-and-egg problem here, wouldn't we? 
Unless "cabal" could be built and installed for off-line use only.