[Haskell-cafe] 64-bit vs 32-bit haskell platform on Mac: misleading notice on Platform website?

[Eugene Kirpichov]

Hi Mark,

Thank you for the clarification.

I think, then, that we should indeed provide a link to a notice about
native libraries - like, "if you're using native libraries, make sure
their architecture is 32-bit  or universal as well; in case of
MacPorts you can achieve this by doing port install libfoo +universal;
in case of brew by brew install libfoo --universal".

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 9:52 PM, Mark Lentczner <mark.lentczner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm the source of the 32-bit recommendation, and the HP Mac distribution
> builder
>
> To summarize what I read in this thread:
>
> 32-bit GHC/HP didn't work with 64-bit Cario libs
> Some libs available via brew were 64-bit, and 32-bit ones would have to be
> compiled
> There is still some bug with 64-bit ghci and some graphics libs
> There is a ghc bug with 64-bit on mac (bug #7040), which isn't fixed until
> 7.6
>
> There seemed to be the implication that a 64-bit ghc would work with 32-bit
> libs, but I don't think that's true. Mac doesn't (generally) support mixed
> modes in the same executable. All system libs are shipped dual-architecture.
> I don't think there are any pre-installed libs that are shipped 64-bit only.
> The problem seen with Cairo would cut both ways: If one had installed the
> 32-bit version of Cairo, one would see the same problem with the 64-bit HP:
> "wrong architecture".
>
> Since code compiled with the 32-bit system is both faster, and uses less
> memory, and it has been the case that all libs are either shipped dual-arch,
> or easily available as 32-bit, and there were known problems with the 64-bit
> version for some use cases, it seemed to me to be best to suggest the 32-bit
> version by default.
>
> The major source of the problems in the OP, seem to be that MacPorts and/or
> brew don't appear to follow the Mac OS X lib standard of installing libs
> dual arch. A brief look at the MacPorts page indicated that there were
> various rules (OS version and processor version) that determined which arch.
> it built by default. Perhaps we should tell people to install the HP
> architecture that matches the architecture that they use for MacPorts or
> brew. However, I bet most people don't know, so we'd need a pointer to where
> they could find out the defaults for those systems, or how to establish what
> their system is using.
>
> Finally, I note that HP 2012.4.0.0 (out in a month) will ship with GHC
> 7.4.2, and so will still have the above bugs.
>
> - Mark
>
>
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Eugene Kirpichov
http://www.linkedin.com/in/eugenekirpichov
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