I'm trying to build a minimal GHC 7.8.3 on Debian Wheezy with only dynamic libraries (this is for a system where disc space is scarce). I'm using this build.mk: GhcRTSWays = thr GhcLibWays = dyn HADDOCK_DOCS = NO DYNAMIC_BY_DEFAULT = YES GhcDynamic = YES Tried with and without GhcDynamic (asked on beginners how it's different to DYNAMIC_GHC_PROGRAMS but still waiting for an answer). It gets near the end of the build, then fails with: HC [stage 1] ghc/stage2/build/Main.dyn_o HC [stage 1] ghc/stage2/build/tmp/ghc-stage2 /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lHSrts_thr-ghc7.8.3 collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status make[1]: *** [ghc/stage2/build/tmp/ghc-stage2] Error 1 make: *** [all] Error 2 If I build with only static libraries, everything seems to work OK.