On Tuesday 14 October 2008 10:33:17 Titto Assini wrote:
Can anyone explain why, now that we have cabal and therefore package installation is just a short "cabal install X" away do we need distribution specific binary packages?
One reason I can think of is foreign (read "not Haskell") dependencies, e.g. the X development libraries for X11-extras. Right now AFAIK you have to hunt and install them manually, which as we know is a pain in the lambda =) Even if they're included in the distro, you have to know what they're called there and make sure it's the right version. In short, it's not a case for distribution specific binaries but for assisting system wide package management.
I personally prefer my hackage packages freshly cooked ...
APT supports source packages as well, and one can build and install from them. Cook 'em, baste 'em, roast 'em =D -- Ariel J. Birnbaum