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Colin Fleming | 6 Oct 01:55

Linux binary dist problems

Hi all,

I just joined this list, I'm interested in learning Haskell to complement my day job language (Java). I was interested in trying to make a simple website using Haskell in order to have something to practise on, however in my host's shared environment I can't use the Linux binary packages - I get the same errors that a few people were talking about in September - firstly the "cannot determine current directory", and then after hacking the configure script the "[install] Error 136". It seems that this is probably an old libc, but this is an environment that I have almost no control over so I can't fix that. Are there any building from source options if I don't already have GHC? It looks from the porting guide that I might be able to make 6.6.2 with just a C compiler, can I then use that to build 6.8.3?

Thanks for any help. As a few people have commented, it would be great to make all this easier, as it's a pretty big stumbling block to starting with Haskell, and people are likely to get discouraged pretty quickly.

Cheers,
Colin
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Chris Mears | 6 Oct 02:16

Re: Linux binary dist problems

"Colin Fleming" <colin.mailinglist <at> gmail.com> writes:

> It looks from the porting guide that I might be able to make 6.6.2
> with just a C compiler, can I then use that to build 6.8.3?

I have the same problem as you -- a hosting environment with an old libc
-- and had the same problem with the binary distribution.  I think you
can do what you have suggested, but I haven't tried.  Instead I have
decided to build a static binary on a local computer and then put that
binary onto the host; maybe this is a solution for you too.
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Colin Fleming | 6 Oct 12:02

Re: Linux binary dist problems

Hi Chris,

Unfortunately that's not easy for me, I don't know exactly what the config of the server is, and I use OSX at home. I could probably rig something up using VMWare but that's a lot of work just to install the compiler. Another option might be to create an unregisterised build, as detailed in the porting guide, then use that to bootstrap a proper build. See:

http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/Porting

Cheers,
Colin
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Marc Weber | 6 Oct 22:08

Re: Linux binary dist problems

Hi Colin,

I only know about one other option:
Try user mode linux / qemu / anotehr virtualziing software and setup the
environment within that which you need... :-(
Another thing you could try is installing nix (nixos.org) (software
distirbution
system).. It bootstraps current ghc via ghc-6.4.2 from binaries / source
automatically (Don't think older compilers are supported than 6.4.x) but
you'll get a complete copy of each system lib within the store
direcotry. So you need some disk space.  And I can't guarantee that it
works out of the box..  (it works with 2.6.9 kernel.. don't know about
older ones)

If all you want to do is toying around I can give you an ssh account to
my server which has ghc installed.
Anyway be prepared that there is no IDE support coming close to what
Eclipse provides for the Java language..

Sincerly
Marc
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Colin Fleming | 6 Oct 23:00

Re: Linux binary dist problems

Hi Marc,

Great, thanks for the pointer. I'll take a look at nix, that might be an option. Thanks for the offer of server space too, but I'd really like to get it going on my own space since I have domains and whatnot pointed there.

I also realise that the IDE support isn't there - it's even worse, I use IntelliJ rather than Eclipse which is positively magical at times. Something similar for a language like Haskell would be amazing.

Thanks for the advice!

Cheers,
Colin

2008/10/6 Marc Weber <marco-oweber <at> gmx.de>
Hi Colin,

I only know about one other option:
Try user mode linux / qemu / anotehr virtualziing software and setup the
environment within that which you need... :-(
Another thing you could try is installing nix (nixos.org) (software
distirbution
system).. It bootstraps current ghc via ghc-6.4.2 from binaries / source
automatically (Don't think older compilers are supported than 6.4.x) but
you'll get a complete copy of each system lib within the store
direcotry. So you need some disk space.  And I can't guarantee that it
works out of the box..  (it works with 2.6.9 kernel.. don't know about
older ones)

If all you want to do is toying around I can give you an ssh account to
my server which has ghc installed.
Anyway be prepared that there is no IDE support coming close to what
Eclipse provides for the Java language..

Sincerly
Marc
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Colin Fleming | 7 Oct 23:38

Re: Linux binary dist problems

Ok, I tried nix but I couldn't get it to work. Initially I had a problem since I was trying to get nix to install in my home directory and on the host (Dreamhost) that's actually a symlink, which nix doesn't allow. Then once I got it installed finally it didn't build - I can't remember the details exactly. I then tried to generate hc files for 6.6.1 to install that to bootstrap from, but I couldn't get ghc to build those on my machine - looking around it seems to have a lot of problems building on Leopard. My last resort is now to install Ubuntu in VMWare, install ghc, then generate the hc files on that, get those on my host, bootstrap from that, and then build 6.8.3 from source.

As an aside, is there any reason the tar of the hc files isn't available for download for versions that support it? It would make this a lot easier.

Cheers,
Colin
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