Ok, figured it out, based on your link, Jonathan, I thought of just running:
make clean
./Setup configure
./Setup build
./Setup install
WHICH of course imports Distribution.Simple, whereas calling "make blah" on the Makefile will not do the import of Distribution.Simple

Anyway, THANKS for the link ... it DID help :)

Cheers,
Roderick Ford

> > This gave me a buildable make of the code
> > (make just calls Setup for each step) but in the "make install" I get:
> > localhost:/home/roderick/Source/hs/src/distribution # make install
> > Installing library in
> > /usr/local/lib/Holumbus-Distribution-0.0.2.0/ghc-6.10.4
> > Installing executable(s) in /usr/local/bin
> > Registering Holumbus-Distribution-0.0.2.0...
> > Setup.hs: internal error: unexpected package db stack
> > make: *** [install] Error 1
> >
> >
> > So, my question is "What is the 'unexpected package db stack' caused by?"
> > Does this give me any hints about the actual problem?
>
> Is cabal using a custom GHC package database? You might find this illuminating:
>
> http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/hackage/ticket/731
>
> --
>   Jonathan Daugherty