I upgraded to ghc version 7.10.2 — that seems to have fixed the problem.
Lastly, are you using a sandbox? It also helps with reducing problems. I never install anything in the global or user level package db, only in sandboxes
Yes, I’m using a sandbox, although made the mistake of not using --only-dependencies when I did $ cabal install hakyll, and it’s been 20+ minutes, and my CPU is still grinding away. ;)
It’s nothing like Python pip so far, but I’m sure there are good reasons why (e.g., need to compile every dependency)
Thanks again
P.