Major installation failure and impossible to post to cabal-devel

Tue Jun 15 10:32:43 EDT 2010

On 21/05/2010 03:00, Mats Ahlgren wrote:
> Hello,
>
> It took me about 3 hours and 7 attempts to post to this list, or any
> similar mailing list. It seems after much sleuthing that my
> registration did not go through (despite clicking on the confirmation
> button on the confirmation link page), and the error message did not
> indicate that. I would highly recommend saying instead of "Error: You
> can't post" to instead say "Error: You don't seem subscribed to this
> list. Please try re-subscribing and making sure you click the
> confirmation button in the confirmation link page. If that fails, try
> again.". I would also recommend having people actually subscribed to
> cabal-devel-owner.

Mailman has no way (that I know of) to customise the content of those 
emails.  It does say that you can contact libraries-owner at haskell.org 
though.  Maybe when we upgrade Mailman in the forthcoming move of 
www.haskell.org we'll be able to improve things here.

> Additionally http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/register does not
> really work -- it requires that you provide a username and password
> *in order to register* with the username and password. If you fill out
> this form, you will see a basic http auth popup appear, preventing you
> from registering.

Don't you just log in with the username and password you registered with?

Cheers,
	Simon

> This basically means that people cannot contact the cabal-devel
> community, nor the libraries at haskell.org community -- in any way
> whatsoever.

> If there is some sort of emergency-contact IRC channel, it may be a
> good idea to link to it on Trac and the Cabal webpage.
>
> My actual messages are below.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From:<libraries-owner at haskell.org>
> Date: Thu, May 20, 2010 at 9:00 PM
> Subject: Re: cabal installation failure
> To: mats.ahlgren at gmail.com
>
>
> You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has
> been automatically rejected.  If you think that your messages are
> being rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at
> libraries-owner at haskell.org.
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mats Ahlgren<mats.ahlgren at gmail.com>
> To: libraries at haskell.org
> Date: Thu, 20 May 2010 21:34:12 -0400
> Subject: Re: cabal installation failure
> Hello,
>
> I have tried about 5 different ways to subscribe and send mail to the
> cabal-devel at haskell.org mailing list, but to no avail.
> Under instructions from http://www.haskell.org/cabal/ I am emailing
> this list in hopes that it will reach the relevant people.
>
> Issue #1 - impossible to contact Cabal devs (can't even post bugs on Trac):
>> sidenote: It seems no one is listening to
>> cabal-devel-owner at haskell.org . Moreover, it seems that it is
>> impossible to subscribe via the mailmain interface, and not even possible
>> to subscribe via by sending "subscribe" to cabal-devel-request. This
>> made it nearly impossible to post to this list.
>
> Issue #2:
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Mats Ahlgren<mats.ahlgren at gmail.com>
>>> To: cabal-devel at haskell.org
>>> Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 01:34:01 -0400
>>> Subject: cabal installation failure
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I've installed Cabal once in the past with no trouble. However I can
>>> no longer do so.
>>>
>>> I tried to install Cabal on a new computer:
>>> - I visited http://www.haskell.org/cabal/download.html and got the
>>> latest version
>>> - I followed the directions in the README file
>>> - No error messages were thrown, the process was "successful" and I
>>> now have a ~/.cabal directory --but-- it doesn't seem as if I have a
>>> 'cabal' command in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin or even anywhere in the
>>> ~/.cabal directory.
>>> - There was no extra information in the README file; no examples of
>>> how to proceed or sample usage
>>> - I then followed the directions to view the user docs online. After
>>> locating them, it seems there are no instructions for end-users, just
>>> for people who wish to submit packages.
>>> - I then looked at
>>> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/wiki/CabalInstall and noticed
>>> there was another way to do this -- with a ./bootstrap.sh -- but this
>>> file is missing in the latest version.
>>>
>>> The end result is that even after 2 hours, I am unable to figure out
>>> why Cabal is not working. If I was a new user, I wouldn't even know
>>> what Cabal does.
>>>
>>> I attempted to file a bug, but then saw I was unable to because the
>>> Trac installation is protected with basic http authentication.
>>>
>>> I write this out of concern, because these issues with documentation
>>> (and what may be a critical bug) may make people shy away from Haskell
>>> as a platform.
>>> Also if anyone might have insight into how to fix this, it would be
>>> much appreciated; thank you.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Mats
>>>
>>> platform:
>>> Linux, Ubuntu "Karmic", GHC version 6.10.4; further information
>>> available upon request
>
> The dozens of obstacles I failed to overcome to post to the
> cabal-devel mailing list is quoted below.
>
> Sincerely,
> Mats
>
> On Thu, May 20, 2010 at 9:29 PM, Mats Ahlgren<mats.ahlgren at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> [attempt #4 to send this mail]
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Mats Ahlgren<mats.ahlgren at gmail.com>
>> Date: Thu, May 20, 2010 at 9:25 PM
>> Subject: Fwd: cabal installation failure
>> To: cabal-devel at haskell.org
>>
>>
>> Original message forwarded below.
>>
>> sidenote: It seems no one is listening to
>> cabal-devel-owner at haskell.org . Moreover, it seems that it is
>> impossible to subscribe via the mailmain interface, and not even possible
>> to subscribe via by sending "subscribe" to cabal-devel-request. This
>> made it nearly impossible to post to this list.
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: Mats Ahlgren<mats.ahlgren at gmail.com>
>> Date: Wed, May 19, 2010 at 1:45 AM
>> Subject: Re: cabal installation failure
>> To: cabal-devel-owner at haskell.org
>>
>>
>> I feel this message was rejected in error due to a race-condition
>> where I sent it too quickly after registering. Please forward to list
>> or accept, thank you.
>>
>> On Wed, May 19, 2010 at 1:00 AM,<cabal-devel-owner at haskell.org>  wrote:
>>> You are not allowed to post to this mailing list, and your message has
>>> been automatically rejected.  If you think that your messages are
>>> being rejected in error, contact the mailing list owner at
>>> cabal-devel-owner at haskell.org.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>> From: Mats Ahlgren<mats.ahlgren at gmail.com>
>>> To: cabal-devel at haskell.org
>>> Date: Wed, 19 May 2010 01:34:01 -0400
>>> Subject: cabal installation failure
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I've installed Cabal once in the past with no trouble. However I can
>>> no longer do so.
>>>
>>> I tried to install Cabal on a new computer:
>>> - I visited http://www.haskell.org/cabal/download.html and got the
>>> latest version
>>> - I followed the directions in the README file
>>> - No error messages were thrown, the process was "successful" and I
>>> now have a ~/.cabal directory --but-- it doesn't seem as if I have a
>>> 'cabal' command in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin or even anywhere in the
>>> ~/.cabal directory.
>>> - There was no extra information in the README file; no examples of
>>> how to proceed or sample usage
>>> - I then followed the directions to view the user docs online. After
>>> locating them, it seems there are no instructions for end-users, just
>>> for people who wish to submit packages.
>>> - I then looked at
>>> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/wiki/CabalInstall and noticed
>>> there was another way to do this -- with a ./bootstrap.sh -- but this
>>> file is missing in the latest version.
>>>
>>> The end result is that even after 2 hours, I am unable to figure out
>>> why Cabal is not working. If I was a new user, I wouldn't even know
>>> what Cabal does.
>>>
>>> I attempted to file a bug, but then saw I was unable to because the
>>> Trac installation is protected with basic http authentication.
>>>
>>> I write this out of concern, because these issues with documentation
>>> (and what may be a critical bug) may make people shy away from Haskell
>>> as a platform.
>>> Also if anyone might have insight into how to fix this, it would be
>>> much appreciated; thank you.
>>>
>>> Sincerely,
>>> Mats
>>>
>>> platform:
>>> Linux, Ubuntu "Karmic", GHC version 6.10.4; further information
>>> available upon request
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> cabal-devel mailing list
> cabal-devel at haskell.org
> http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/cabal-devel