When using the original nhc98 binaries I built from the included C sources, I got a build error while building ...../prelude/Binary/PutBits.gc
As it turns out, it seems that the correct answer is to set "SEARCH = ../$(MACHINE)" -- using ../IO caused segfaults later in the build (during the time profiling build).
Thanks for reporting this apparent bug. I can't reproduce it here, and it is not clear to me how your proposed solutions work. At first glance, those particular changes to the search path should have no effect on GreenCard. I suspect that there is something deeper and more troubling going on.
Perhaps it is due to my nhc98 being built with the out-of-sync 'C' sources. If someone bootstrapped with ghc, perhaps they would not run into the problem at all? I'll have to try another bootstrap to see if it recurs. -Brent