(Coming from a Haskell newbie who has both used the Haskell Platform and built ghc from scratch-)

You want the Haskell Platform. It comes with a bunch of useful libraries in addition to ghc. If you're a beginner, it will do everything you need for quite a while.

Once you get used to using ghc and cabal and such, you can "upgrade" to the latest ghc (or the development head, if you're a bleeding-edge kind of person).

On Mar 29, 2013, at 7:31 AM, Josh Stratton wrote:

Maybe I'm confused, but I did download the binary package.  That's the one I can't install.  I downloaded the binary package and followed the steps in the INSTALL file which included running the configure step (with an optional prefix) and "make install".  I don't think it's actually building ghc.  I can try the haskell platform to see what happens. 

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 12:05 AM, Karl Voelker <ktvoelker@gmail.com> wrote:

This isn't exactly an answer to your question, but have you considered using the Haskell Platform (which is recommended for most purposes) or a GHC binary package?

http://www.haskell.org/platform/

http://www.haskell.org/ghc/download_ghc_7_6_2#binaries

-Karl

On Thu, Mar 28, 2013 at 9:37 AM, Josh Stratton <strattonbrazil@gmail.com> wrote:

I recently downloaded the ghc distribution for Linux (x86_64) and had difficulty installing to my machine.  The configure step seems to have completed successfully, but when I run the followup "make install", it fails suggesting that I haven't run the configure command yet.  

atlas => ./configure --prefix=/opt/ghc

checking for path to top of build tree... /tmp/ghc-7.6.2

Build platform inferred as: x86_64-unknown-linux

Host platform inferred as: x86_64-unknown-linux

Target platform inferred as: x86_64-unknown-linux

GHC build  : x86_64-unknown-linux

GHC host   : x86_64-unknown-linux

GHC target : x86_64-unknown-linux

checking for perl... /rel/map/generic-2012.18.last/bin/perl

checking if your perl works in shell scripts... yes

checking for a BSD-compatible install... /usr/bin/install -c

checking whether ln -s works... yes

checking for gsed... sed

checking for gcc... /usr/bin/gcc

checking for gcc... /usr/bin/gcc

checking whether the C compiler works... yes

checking for C compiler default output file name... a.out

checking for suffix of executables... 

checking whether we are cross compiling... no

checking for suffix of object files... o

checking whether we are using the GNU C compiler... yes

checking whether /usr/bin/gcc accepts -g... yes

checking for /usr/bin/gcc option to accept ISO C89... none needed

checking version of gcc... 4.4.6

checking how to run the C preprocessor... /usr/bin/gcc -E

checking whether ld understands --hash-size=31... 

checking whether ld understands --reduce-memory-overheads... 

checking for extra options to pass gcc when compiling via C...  -fwrapv

checking Setting up CFLAGS, LDFLAGS, IGNORE_LINKER_LD_FLAGS and CPPFLAGS... done

checking Setting up CONF_CC_OPTS_STAGE0, CONF_GCC_LINKER_OPTS_STAGE0, CONF_LD_LINKER_OPTS_STAGE0 and CONF_CPP_OPTS_STAGE0... done

checking Setting up CONF_CC_OPTS_STAGE1, CONF_GCC_LINKER_OPTS_STAGE1, CONF_LD_LINKER_OPTS_STAGE1 and CONF_CPP_OPTS_STAGE1... done

checking Setting up CONF_CC_OPTS_STAGE2, CONF_GCC_LINKER_OPTS_STAGE2, CONF_LD_LINKER_OPTS_STAGE2 and CONF_CPP_OPTS_STAGE2... done

checking for .subsections_via_symbols... no

checking whether your assembler supports .ident directive... yes

checking for GNU non-executable stack support... yes

checking for grep that handles long lines and -e... /bin/grep

checking for egrep... /bin/grep -E

checking for ANSI C header files... yes

checking for sys/types.h... yes

checking for sys/stat.h... yes

checking for stdlib.h... yes

checking for string.h... yes

checking for memory.h... yes

checking for strings.h... yes

checking for inttypes.h... yes

checking for stdint.h... yes

checking for unistd.h... yes

checking size of void *... 8

checking for ar... /usr/bin/ar

checking whether /usr/bin/ar is GNU ar... yes

checking for ar arguments... q

checking whether ranlib is needed... no

configure: creating ./config.status

config.status: creating settings

config.status: creating mk/config.mk

config.status: creating mk/install.mk

****************************************************

Configuration done, ready to 'make install'

(see README and INSTALL files for more info.)

****************************************************

                                                                                                                                        atlas => make install

make -r --no-print-directory -f ghc.mk install BINDIST=YES NO_INCLUDE_DEPS=YES

ghc.mk:122: *** Please run ./configure first.  Stop.

make: *** [install] Error 2

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