RE: imports with --make?

Is there any way to use --make but provide paths to search for .hi files, *not* .hs files? For example, if a library doesn't use ghc's package system, and is distributed in precompiled form, there doesn't seem to currently be a way to point ghc at the import files when using --make - it always complains that it can't find the modules, and -v shows that it is only looking for .hs files.

No, there's no way to do this. Packages are GHC's mechanism for supporting precompiled libraries with --make or GHCi. We don't want to add another way, because things are complicated enough already. Cheers, Simon