On Sun, Nov 29, 2015 at 2:12 PM, Michael Orlitzky <michael@orlitzky.com> wrote:

> Furthermore, distributions do not install using cabal or from Hackage.

They do install from Hackage, just not using cabal-install.

So there's a distribution out there where end users pull source from Hackage, pull source for every dependency, and then build it all with GHC? If they're not doing what distributors like Debian does--building binaries--then what's the point of distributing at all?

When using a real package manager, every package's dependencies must be
satisfied simultaneously.

True, but ouch, ultimately this is one factor that pushed me out of desktop Linux altogether. It's too hard to get packages for things I want to use, and then I'm fending for myself by building things. Centrally-planned packaging does not scale.

Using stack isolates the developer from
dependency conflicts with other packages during development, but when a
user goes to install it, he doesn't have that luxury.

He does if he uses stack. Grab a stack binary. It even installs GHC for the user.