The long anticipated Haskell Platform 2014.2 release, including GHC 7.8.3, and numerous updated packages, is almost here!

We have created "Release Candidate 2" installers for OS X and Windows, and believe, barring show stopper issues, creepers exploding, or unexpected trips to the nether, these will likely be blessed as the final by the end of the week.

If you would like to be an early adopter, please try 'em out...

Short Notes for RC2, read these if nothing else:

General
  • includes GHC 7.8.3
  • includes long awaited updates to OpenGL & GLUT packages
  • most other packages brought up to date (or nearly so)
  • website is still woefully out of date... will work on it this week
Windows

Extra thanks to Randy Polen for burning the midnight-oil to get ths out
  • removed unneeded python (et al) files from the GHC bindist for 64-bit Windows (referenced in GHC ticket #9014)
  • added HTML "view source" pages for the GHC packages that was missing from the GHC bindist for both 32- and 64-bit Windows.
Mac OS X

If you installed RC1 or older versions of the platform, you can remove them first with the command  sudo uninstall-hs only 7.8.3 --remove Run it without --remove to see what it will do first, it if you like. You can also just install this one right on top of RC1. If you have older 7.8.3 installs from other distributions (bindist, built from src, etc...) you may want to manually remove them first... YMMV.. Yoda says: "When doubt you have, the $PATH examine, you must!"
Source tarball
  • uses new build machinery... all the kinks may not be worked out, and not all build featuers (notably a --prefix command) are implemented yet. This doesn't affect the content of the Platform, though.
  • generic *nix builds, and specific distribution builds are forth coming (though feel free to chip in and help!)
Longer Notes for RC2:

General
  • Built with the new shake based build system
  • cgi package not included as it doesn't build under 7.8, and no word from the maintainer in quite some time
  • hscolour is included as a tool, mostly as it is used to build the platform itself on win and mac... but technically it isn't part of the platform
  • the haskell-platform package itself is not in these releases... it never contained anything other than dependencies.
Windows
  • The Haskell Platform now provides a native Windows 64-bit installation (haskell-platform issue #54)
  • All included packages built without --enable-split-objs (GHC 7.8 FAQ)
  • All included packages built without --enable-shared (GHC ticket #8228)
  • If other Haskell Platform installations are detected during the installation of Haskell Platform 2014.2.0.0, a warning is displayed to the user that this is not recommended since problems will arise due to how the PATH is used in many cases to find ancillary build tools
  • Using ghci to build an executable that links against a DLL may result in numerous warnings about symbols (GHC ticket #9297)
  • The Haskell Platform for Windows, both 32-bit and 64-bit, now includes an updated version of the OpenGL Utility Toolkit (GLUT) from the FreeGLUT project, utilizing the pre-built distribution fromhttp://www.transmissionzero.co.uk/software/freeglut-devel/ with the MinGW build (freeglut-MinGW-2.8.1-1.mp.zip). (haskell-platform issue #81)
                  Mac OS X
                  • file layout on the Mac has improved. In particular, executables are now installed directly in $prefix/bin dirs, rather than within the package dir
                  • Distributed with a build of 7.8.3 that differs from the released bindist in two ways: a) it was built split-objs for smaller resulting executables, b) it includes Cabal-1.18.1.4 which fixes a particularly nasty problem with haddock, -XCPP, and clang based systems. This ghc-7.8.3 bindist is available as well:
                  • haddocks finally cross link between packages correctly
                  • includes a new experimental activate-hs command that can switch between multiple installed versions of the platform
                  • includes a slightly updated uninstall-hs command
                  • the cabal command is wrapped to provide a smoother file layout on the Mac... the wrapping only updates the ~/.cabal/config file the first time you run it.. please pay attention to its output - if you have a custom config file, you'll want to update it, as Cabal's defaults have changed
                  Timetable
                  • End of this week (from my vacation, I'll point out), we'll declare success and rename the files.
                  — Mark 

                  SHA-256 sums :
                  62f39246ad95dd2aed6ece5138f6297f945d2b450f215d074820294310e0c48a  Haskell Platform 2014.2.0.0 64bit RC2.signed.pkg
                  7c7d3585e89e1407461efea29dcaa9628c3be3c47d93a13b5a4978046375e4fd  haskell-platform-2014.2.0.0-RC2.tar.gz
                  6eedd76aafb266d9a09baff80cd2973498ab59195c771f7cd64425d40be29c49  hskellPlatform-2014.2.0.0-i386-RC2-setup.exe
                  b22115ed84d1f7e747d7f0b47e32e1489e4a24613d69c91df4ae32052f88b130  hskellPlatform-2014.2.0.0-x86_64-RC2-setup.exe