#578: Allow installation of distro packages ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Reporter: bos | Owner: Type: enhancement | Status: new Priority: normal | Milestone: _|_ Component: cabal-install tool | Version: Severity: normal | Resolution: Keywords: | Difficulty: project(> week) Ghcversion: | Platform: ---------------------------------+------------------------------------------ Changes (by duncan): * difficulty: unknown => project(> week) * version: 1.6.0.1 => * milestone: => _|_ Comment: I think this would be extremely difficult to do sanely and correctly. For one thing there's the permissions issue. It's only any good if the user is root so that they can install system packages. We would also need to know that the compiler the user is using is actually provided by a distro package. The main issue is that asking if a version of a Haskell package is available as a distro package is not nearly enough information for cabal- install to construct an installation plan. We do not know if the distro package provides the same thing as what our install plan calls for. We can ask the system-specific script if a distro package for foo-1.0 is available, but if the distro built foo-1.0 against bar-1.0 but our install plan called for it to use bar-2.0 then we're stuffed (or we need to replan everything and there is no guarantee that the alternative plan exists). It would need integration on a rather more intimate level. We would need to know the complete dependency info between the distro packages (at least between those providing Haskell packages). There's the added complication that distro packages will often bundle several Haskell packages (like ghc + core packages). -- Ticket URL: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/578#comment:1 Hackage http://haskell.org/cabal/ Hackage: Cabal and related projects