I've been trying to build zlib (any version) onto a Debian 5.1 machine, and had a few problems. I've solved these now, but one of them was a dependence on not only zlibc/zlib1g as you'd expect, but zlib1g-dev as well, and wasn't actually in any of the error messages. I ended up relying on a solution given for a similar problem with mySQL installation. I noticed that Hackage only lists Haskell library dependencies - might it be an idea to list other non-Haskell ones, too? cabal-install won't install without zlib, so there's no ease of installation to rely on, and not everyone would have found/read the mySQL post. Just a thought. Iain
iainspeed:
I've been trying to build zlib (any version) onto a Debian 5.1 machine, and had a few problems. I've solved these now, but one of them was a dependence on not only zlibc/zlib1g as you'd expect, but zlib1g-dev as well, and wasn't actually in any of the error messages. I ended up relying on a solution given for a similar problem with mySQL installation.
I noticed that Hackage only lists Haskell library dependencies - might it be an idea to list other non-Haskell ones, too? cabal-install won't install without zlib, so there's no ease of installation to rely on, and not everyone would have found/read the mySQL post.
The cabal file lists zlib as a dependency: extra-libraries: z however, what 'z' means varies from distro to distro. Ultimately, your package manager has to solve this. -- Don
2009/6/30 Don Stewart
The cabal file lists zlib as a dependency:
extra-libraries: z
however, what 'z' means varies from distro to distro. Ultimately, your package manager has to solve this.
-- Don
Thanks for the reply, but I see two problems with this 1. cabal-install depends on zlib, so the .cabal file is not a help in this case. 2. Even if I did know that cabal-install was the usual package manager (saw one person today on Haskell Cafe that didn't) and thought to look in the .cabal file, then "extra-libraries: z" still wouldn't have helped me, as a human, know to install zlibc, zlib1g and zlib1g-dev. 3) one for luck, Debian doesn't have a package for cabal-install or the haskell zlib library, so it can't solve this for me either. Unless it can use .cabal files, and why would I know this and what would the commands be? I had to completely remove Cabal and GHC and then spend 2 days resolving dependencies to get it working with the latest versions on OSX Tiger as well, so it's not as if this is a one off problem, unless I'm the problem. Therefore I think some human readable text on Hackage would be helpful. Iain
iainspeed:
2009/6/30 Don Stewart
The cabal file lists zlib as a dependency:
extra-libraries: z
however, what 'z' means varies from distro to distro. Ultimately, your package manager has to solve this.
-- Don
Thanks for the reply, but I see two problems with this
1. cabal-install depends on zlib, so the .cabal file is not a help in this case.
2. Even if I did know that cabal-install was the usual package manager (saw one person today on Haskell Cafe that didn't) and thought to look in the .cabal file, then "extra-libraries: z" still wouldn't have helped me, as a human, know to install zlibc, zlib1g and zlib1g-dev.
3) one for luck, Debian doesn't have a package for cabal-install or the haskell zlib library, so it can't solve this for me either. Unless it can use .cabal files, and why would I know this and what would the commands be?
I had to completely remove Cabal and GHC and then spend 2 days resolving dependencies to get it working with the latest versions on OSX Tiger as well, so it's not as if this is a one off problem, unless I'm the problem. Therefore I think some human readable text on Hackage would be helpful.
Perhaps the Haskell Platform would be helpful here to get you bootstrapped? http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/ Pre-built binaries for the main toolchain for a good number of systems. -- Don
2009/6/30 Don Stewart
Perhaps the Haskell Platform would be helpful here to get you bootstrapped?
http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/
Pre-built binaries for the main toolchain for a good number of systems.
-- Don
Thanks for the link. Unfortunately, the OSX only works for Leopard, and I initially used the Debian package for GHC (6.8.2) and Hugs but no cabal-install in there, and then used source to get GHC6.8.3. I still can't get cabal-install on. I think the main point though is that Cabal and cabal-install are not straightforward to install (I must be pretty close to trying all versions by now), and the packages they require aren't always straight forward to install, which is why I think more, human readable, dependency information could be shown on Hackage. I'm already sold on using Haskell so I'm persevering, but I think anyone who was just interested and had this trouble would have given up long ago, and likely you wouldn't have heard from them. Iain http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=haskell
iainspeed:
2009/6/30 Don Stewart
Perhaps the Haskell Platform would be helpful here to get you bootstrapped?
http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/
Pre-built binaries for the main toolchain for a good number of systems.
-- Don
Thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, the OSX only works for Leopard, and I initially used the Debian package for GHC (6.8.2) and Hugs but no cabal-install in there, and then used source to get GHC6.8.3. I still can't get cabal-install on.
The 'unix' source package will bootstrap Haskell for you on OS X (the nice binary installer though is indeed Leopard only).
I think the main point though is that Cabal and cabal-install are not straightforward to install (I must be pretty close to trying all versions by now), and the packages they require aren't always straight forward to install, which is why I think more, human readable, dependency information could be shown on Hackage.
Yes, definitely. Making it trivial to get a complete toolchain is the job of the Haskell Platform, too.
I'm already sold on using Haskell so I'm persevering, but I think anyone who was just interested and had this trouble would have given up long ago, and likely you wouldn't have heard from them.
Well, cabal-install requires some bootstrapping, hence the platform to make that easier. -- Don
Iain Barnett wrote:
3) one for luck, Debian doesn't have a package for cabal-install or the haskell zlib library, so it can't solve this for me either. Unless it can use .cabal files, and why would I know this and what would the commands be?
Haskell in Debian is currently in a rather poor state although I and others are working on fixing it. Currently, I would personally write off Debian stable and testing for any serious haskell coding as both ship ghc 6.8.2 which is missing a bunch of rather important stuff that is in ghc 6.10.X. In Debian unstable we currently have ghc-6.10.3 and a growing number of libraries (including zlib and bzlib), but there is also some nasty breakage, like haskell-network is currently not installable due to a build dependency being stuck in the Debian NEW queue. However, all of the above problems are able to be worked around if you know a little about building binary debian packages from debian source packages. I currently run Ubuntu 9.04 as my main development machine and add the Debian unstable deb-src line to sources.list and then build binary Debian packages from the Debian source packages and install those. I really should blog this :-). HTH, Erik -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Erik de Castro Lopo http://www.mega-nerd.com/
participants (3)
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Don Stewart -
Erik de Castro Lopo -
Iain Barnett