[Haskell-cafe] Re: need help for cabal-install

[Duncan Coutts]

On Fri, 2008-01-18 at 23:44 -0500, Chris Ball wrote:
> Hi Steve,
> 
>    > Now with "cabal install", I can not figure out where to specify the
>    > --prefix. Cabal always complains "failed to install package".
> 
> I think you're just missing a "--user":
> 
>    $ cabal install --prefix=$HOME --user foo

The prefix can also be set in the $HOME/.cabal/config file.

BTW, In the development version of cabal-install --user is the default
and the default user prefix is $HOME/.cabal (though both can be changed
in the config file).

I'd also recommend anyone trying out cabal-install to ignore the old
version on hackage and go straight for the development version. It's a
tad harder to get installed since it also needs the development version
of the Cabal lib, but it has so many issues fixed.

darcs get --partial http://darcs.haskell.org/cabal
cd cabal
make setup
./setup configure --prefix=$HOME/.cabal --user
./setup build
./setup install
cd ..
darcs get --partial http://darcs.haskell.org/cabal-install
cd cabal-install
runghc Setup.hs configure --prefix=$HOME/.cabal --bindir=$HOME --user
runghc Setup.hs build
runghc Setup.hs install

This assumes $HOME/bin is on your path and that you already have the
zlib and HTTP packages installed.

Then get the latest hackage package list with:
cabal update

For a quick guide see:
cabal --help

There's also bash command line completion support:
source bash-completion/cabal

Then give it a try. 

Report any complaints or requests in the hackage trac:
http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/


Duncan