FreeBSD/amd64 registerised running

[Simon Marlow]

Claus Reinke wrote:
>> I'm confused.  I thought we copied the configuration from the target 
>> to the host as part of the bootstrapping process, but now I can't see 
>> how this is supposed to happen for HsBaseConfig.h.  It looks like 
>> following the instructions in the building guide will result in 
>> failure if you try to cross-compile between machines with different 
>> word sizes, but I know I've done this in the past :-/
>> Ian, any idea how this is supposed to work?
>>
>> Anyway, to answer your question, using hsc2hs in System.Posix.Types 
>> will cause problems for bootstrapping GHC, yes, because we can't run 
>> hsc2hs on the target without GHC, but we can run configure.  I suppose 
>> we could add a dependency on another Haskell compiler just to run 
>> hsc2hs, but that's a pain.
> 
> how about a repository for platform-specific configuration files? that 
> way you only need the first user on each platform to figure things out, 
> either by installing extra tools
> or by modifying existing configuration files?

The case we're worried about is the first time you port to a new platform, 
because after that we have a working compiler so there's no problem.  The 
instructions in the GHC building guide describe how to do this 
(http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/Porting).  It's not 
especially well supported by the build system, so the process is a bit fiddly, 
but we have to be careful to make sure it is at least possible to do it and not 
too tortuous.

Cheers,
	Simon