On Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:17:15 +0000
John Lato
Hello,
Could this be a global/user install issue? That is, if the old-time package is installed per-user, and you're trying to install a package globally, the user-installed packages all show up as hidden, because they can't be dependencies of a global install.
This shows up frequently because global installs are the default when doing "runghc Setup.hs install", but per-user installs are the default for cabal install. If you use both of these commands, you'll run into this sooner or later.
You can run "ghc-pkg list" to get a listing of what's installed where. If "old-time" is only in the local database, you should reinstall it into the global database (or install everything globally).
I knew this looked familiar ! It's the dreaded Debian/Global Local conflict problem. Some packages which I can't install using cabal I install Debian packages for, which install globally. Then, naturally, there are Debian packages which won't install (running unstable :-) so I used cabal for those and they install locally. I thought it would be better to keep it local to avoid conflicts, so much for that theory. I basically use Debian for two reasons: to get ghc and to get cabal. After that it seems to me a better idea to stick with cabal rather than the debian packages. Well I know what I'm doing this weekend :-) Thanks very much (everyone) for the help. Brian