platform/cabal problems
Hi all. I've written some Haskell program, and I wanted to give it to a friend, in source form, so he can run and modify it, and learn some Haskell while doing so. I was using some cabalized extra packages but hey, this looks like the typical use case for the haskell-platform. So: I told him to install the newest stable ghc and the current platform release and this happens: la:/home/b/appl.linux/haskell-platform-2009.2.0# ./configure ... checking for hsc2hs... /usr/local/bin/hsc2hs checking version of ghc... 6.10.3 checking version of ghc-pkg matches... yes checking ghc actually works... yes checking the ghc core packages are all installed... no configure: error: The core package editline-0.2.1.0 is missing. It should have been distributed with 6.10.2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Well, editline is available from hackage, but to access it, one needs cabal, which is included in the platform, which cannot be built, because, see above. Yes, I know a handfull of workarounds - but they all require some previous knowledge, experience, and/or extra time. Really, if the platform fails in this very simple setting (a fresh install with current stable releases) then it is not much help in advertising Haskell. What's the particular reason for the failure? editline was distributed with ghc-6.10.2, but not with 6.10.3? I wouldn't expect an incompatible change when (only) the patchlevel is bumped. The platform web site should probably replace "works with ghc-6.10.x" by "works with ghc-6.10.2 only". Best regards, Johannes.
On Wed, 2009-05-27 at 22:43 +0200, Johannes Waldmann wrote:
Hi all.
I've written some Haskell program, and I wanted to give it to a friend, in source form, so he can run and modify it, and learn some Haskell while doing so. I was using some cabalized extra packages but hey, this looks like the typical use case for the haskell-platform. So: I told him to install the newest stable ghc and the current platform release and this happens:
la:/home/b/appl.linux/haskell-platform-2009.2.0# ./configure ... checking for hsc2hs... /usr/local/bin/hsc2hs checking version of ghc... 6.10.3 checking version of ghc-pkg matches... yes checking ghc actually works... yes checking the ghc core packages are all installed... no configure: error: The core package editline-0.2.1.0 is missing. It should have been distributed with 6.10.2 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When we released 2009.2.0, ghc-6.10.3 had not been released yet. I had hoped that the source based installer would work with 6.10.3, but we forgot that 6.10.3 was removing a package that had shipped with 6.10.2, hence the error you see. You can hack the list of expected packages or use --enable-unsupported-ghc-version or wait 'til the release next week of 2009.2.0.1 which will use ghc 6.10.3.
What's the particular reason for the failure? editline was distributed with ghc-6.10.2, but not with 6.10.3? I wouldn't expect an incompatible change when (only) the patchlevel is bumped.
It's a bit unfortunate. The way we're coping with it in 2009.2.0.1 is that we supply editline.
The platform web site should probably replace "works with ghc-6.10.x" by "works with ghc-6.10.2 only".
Yes. Duncan
participants (2)
-
Duncan Coutts -
Johannes Waldmann