Re: building on Debian 3.0

* Richard Uhtenwoldt <[email protected]> [2003-02-04T22:12-0800]:
>    http://www-i2.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Software/Haskell/debian/

Yes, Brent's packages supersede mine.  The archive is stale.


> On my system, 
>    /usr/bin/ghc-pkg
> is a symlink to
>    /etc/alternatives/ghc-pkg
> which is a symlink to
>    /usr/lib/ghc-5.02.2/bin/ghc-pkg
> which is a symlink to
>    ghc-pkg-5.02.2
> 
> (Yes, I do that many symlinks is stupid.)

*wearing the Debian GHC maintainer's hat*

Well, if you care you could ask yourself why I did it like this.
Looking into /etc/alternatives/, there are seemingly many other
packages doing the same thing.  The update-alternatives(8) man page is
a good starting place, too.

In short: 
  * to be able to have ghc4 and ghc5 (two different packages, explicit
    decision by me back then) coexist friendly on one system.

  * to give admins an easy choice about the site-wide default
    compiler.


* Malcolm Wallace <[email protected]> [2003-02-05T11:19+0000]:
> It looks as though the debian installation of ghc is non-standard.

Which standard?  The upstream tarball installs to /usr/local by
default or whereever I want to, IIRC.


> All of ghc-5.02.2, ghci-5.02.2, and ghc-pkg-5.02.2, should exist in
> addition to ghc, ghci, and ghc-pkg.  

They do exist:

	[215]% dpkg -L ghc5|grep 'bin/.*5.04'
	/usr/lib/ghc-5.04.2/bin/ghc-pkg-5.04.2
	/usr/lib/ghc-5.04.2/bin/ghc-5.04.2
	/usr/lib/ghc-5.04.2/bin/ghci-5.04.2

To switch between ghc4 and ghc5:
	export PATH=/usr/lib/ghc-$VERSION/bin:$PATH

Easy setup, all programs (including the non-version-in-name ones)
always consistantly fitting together.  Least maintenance effort.  No
shared/overwritten files.  Works for me since ~1999.


> The idea is that you can have several versions of ghc installed
> simultaneously, and refer to the version number explicitly to select
> any non-default one.

It's not possible to install more than one version of a single Debian
package.  Whether this is a good thing or not may be arguable, but
it's the status quo.

If someone wants different versions of the same software installed,
it's a special need, and so s/he needs to install them locally to ~/,
or some other place.

Creating a .deb with a different name is also an option.  I try to
keep it relatively easy, even.  I think only two files need trivial
changes, but I haven't tried this in a long time.  I do accept patches
and am responsive to questions usually, though.


HTH, HAND :)

Michael
(not subscribed, please honor the M-F-T header)