Thanks to all who responded about the benefits of using Cabal. After trying out Bulat's Streams library, I thought I would download ByteString (aka FPS) to compare the wc demos. To compile something using Streams, I need to use a -i flag (thanks Bulat). When I followed the README that comes with ByteString, I get this: % ./Setup.hs install Installing: /f/g/lib/fps-0.7 & /f/g/bin fps-0.7... *** Exception: /f: createDirectory: permission denied (Permission denied) I don't have root on this machine, and it's not obvious (to me) how to specify that everything should be installed locally. Any suggestions? Thanks, Chad Scherrer Computational Mathematics Group Pacific Northwest National Laboratory "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." -- Groucho Marx