duncan.coutts:
On Mon, 2005-12-12 at 18:20 +0000, Andrew Walrond wrote:
I run a source based linux distro called Heretix, and I want to make a ghc package which will install with or without an existing ghc. At the moment, we supply a binary-ghc package, whch is a prerequisite of the from-source ghc package.
When we first added ghc to gentoo we considered doing an hc build but decided against it in the end. We now just do what you currently do, that is provide a binary package as a dependency of the source package.
The ghc build system doesn't easily support hc builds and my impression
I wouldn't say that was true.
is that it would take quite a bit of effort on the part of the ghc developers to improve the support for that kind of build. Given that it is quite a bit of work and there are simple workarounds (ie use a binary package) it has not been a high priority.
No, .hc builds just work. They've been built nightly for amd64,x86 and sparc openbsd for a couple of years now.
Changing the build system tends to be the kind of task that can only be done by core developers and it is these developers whose time is most valuably spent on other tasks.
So I think you're unlikely to get the changes you're looking for. My advice is to just stick to the binary bootstrap method.
You won't have to hack the build system ;) -- Don