ghc-cabal-Random

[Wolfram Kahl]

On Sat, Dec 31, 2011 at 11:43:26PM +0200, Yitzchak Gale wrote:
> Serge D. Mechveliani wrote:
> > I have  ghc-7.4.0.20111219  made from source and tested it on the
> > DoCon-2.12 application -- thanks to people for their help!
> > It looks all right.
> > This was -- with skipping the module Random
> > Now it remains to add the Random package.
> > I have taken  AC-Random Version 0.1  from hackage...
> > Its installation requires Cabal..
> > And Cabal is difficult to install..
> 
> [...]
>
> Today, it is very unusual to use GHC by itself.
> To use Haskell, you install the Haskell Platform.
> That is GHC together with Cabal and a basic
> set of libraries. It is very easy to install.
> 
> http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/

However, since you are willing and able to test bleeding-edge versions of GHC,
you need to be able to live without the platform, which typically
catches up to GHC versions only within a couple of months.

> Almost all Haskell software is expected to
> be installed using Cabal nowadays.

It is important to know that people associate two packages with the name ``Cabal'':

 * cabal         : package infrastructure shipped with GHC ---
                   only a library.
 * cabal-install : package manager requiring a number of other packages
     (in particular networking packages), and providing the executable ``cabal''

Life without cabal-install is not only possible,
but also safer.
(See also: http://www.vex.net/~trebla/haskell/sicp.xhtml )

If you installed an experimental GHC version,
it makes sense to install packages into the same directory,
say /usr/local/packages/ghc-7.4.0.20111219.

Assuming you downloaded AC-Random-0.1.tar.gz, do the following:

  tar xzf AC-Random-0.1.tar.gz
  cd AC-Random-0.1.tar.gz
  ghc --make Setup
  ./Setup configure --prefix=/usr/local/packages/ghc-7.4.0.20111219 -p
  ./Setup build -v
  ./Setup haddock
  ./Setup install -v


Hope this helps!


Wolfram