Hi Brian,
Currently debian stable installs ghc 6.12.1.
Testing also doesn't have the new ghc. Here's how I do it: I have a prefix $HOME/local/haskell, where I installed the ghc binaries (downloadable at the ghc main site.) Just use ./configure --prefix=$HOME/local/haskell. Then use the same ./configure command for the Haskell platform. I like to keep stuff easily uninstallable, which is why I chose to have a separate prefix, but you can also just dump into /usr/local. The manual version doesn't require a lot of maintenance, since ghc versions and Haskell platform versions aren't very frequently released. Also, you'd like to migrate to a new version of your compiler consciously anyway, so might as well make that a manual step, seeing as you'll probably read CHANGELOG while it installs :-) Just put your prefix in your path (or don't, if you installed in /usr/local) and you'll have a very low overhead, recent Haskell version. Installation is quick and easy, since you don't have to compile GHC. Regards, Aleks