A recent change in cabal-install's command line interface seems not to be compatible with ghc-7.6.3. cabal-install-1.22.0.0 doesn't like --disable-executable-profiling as a command line option any more. (I could only find this related to this change: https://github.com/haskell/cabal/pull/2286) $ cabal install --disable-executable-profiling cabal: unrecognized 'install' option `--disable-executable-profiling' I try --disable-profiling instead. $ cabal install transformers --disable-profiling -j3 Resolving dependencies... Notice: installing into a sandbox located at [snip] Configuring transformers-0.4.2.0... Failed to install transformers-0.4.2.0 Build log [snip]: unrecognized 'configure' option `--disable-profiling' cabal: Error: some packages failed to install: transformers-0.4.2.0 failed during the configure step. The exception was: ExitFailure 1 Using the following versions of cabal and ghc. $ cabal -V cabal-install version 1.22.0.0 using version 1.22.0.0 of the Cabal library $ ghc -V The Glorious Glasgow Haskell Compilation System, version 7.6.3 --disable-profiling works fine with ghc-7.8.3, this is only a problem with 7.6.3. PS: transformers is only a dependency of an executable I am trying to build. But this happens with all the other dependencies as well. -- Ozgur Akgun