#601: cabal setup doesn't respect --prefix ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Reporter: zooko | Owner: Type: defect | Status: closed Priority: normal | Milestone: Component: Cabal library | Version: 1.6.0.1 Severity: normal | Resolution: wontfix Keywords: | Difficulty: unknown Ghcversion: | Platform: ----------------------------+----------------------------------------------- Comment (by duncan): What is impossible is being able to install into a completely random location in the filesystem and also have that installed package also be available in the environment by default. Sure, GNU stow uses the filesystem as the DB, but there something knows that the prefix containing the stow store is the database. GHC does not know that. Now you could imagine a design where you did tell ghc "there's an extra global package db at /usr/local/stow/var/ghc/package.conf" and then that location is inside the $prefix that you selected "/usr/local/stow" and so install could write to it. But of course that requires additional configuration to tell ghc that there's going to be this extra package db (and doing that will require writing out of the $prefix). So from a clean ghc installation I don't think there is any way to install packages and have them work by default that doesn't involve writing outside of the $prefix. It can certainly be arranged by prior configuration, but the question is what the defaults should be. Working by default is a fairly high priority. -- Ticket URL: http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/601#comment:6 Hackage http://haskell.org/cabal/ Hackage: Cabal and related projects