1 <Chapter id="sec-installing-bin-distrib">
2 <Title>Installing GHC</Title>
3 <IndexTerm><Primary>binary installations</Primary></IndexTerm>
4 <IndexTerm><Primary>installation, of binaries</Primary></IndexTerm>
7 Installing from binary distributions is easiest, and recommended!
8 (Why binaries? Because GHC is a Haskell compiler written in Haskell,
9 so you've got to bootstrap it somehow. We provide machine-generated
10 C-files-from-Haskell for this purpose, but it's really quite a pain to
11 use them. If you must build GHC from its sources, using a
12 binary-distributed GHC to do so is a sensible way to proceed. For the
13 other <Literal>fptools</Literal> programs, many are written in
14 Haskell, so binary distributions allow you to install them without
15 having a Haskell compiler.)
18 <Para>This guide is in several parts:</para>
22 <para> Installing on Unix-a-likes (<Xref
23 LinkEnd="sec-unix-a-likes">). </para>
26 <para> Installing on Windows (<Xref
27 LinkEnd="sec-install-windows">). </para>
30 <para> The layout of installed files (<Xref
31 LinkEnd="sec-install-files">). You don't need to know this to
32 install GHC, but it's useful if you are changing the
33 implementation.</para>
37 <Sect1 id="sec-unix-a-likes"><Title>Installing on Unix-a-likes</Title>
40 <title>When a platform-specific package is available</title>
42 <para>For certain platforms, we provide GHC binaries packaged
43 using the native package format for the platform. This is
44 likely to be by far the best way to install GHC for your
45 platform if one of these packages is available, since
46 dependencies will automatically be handled and the package
47 system normally provides a way to uninstall the package at a
50 <para>We generally provide the following packages:</para>
54 <term>RedHat or SuSE Linux/x86</term>
56 <para>RPM source & binary packages for RedHat and SuSE
57 Linux (x86 only) are available for most major
63 <term>Debian Linux/x86</term>
65 <para>Debian packages for Linux (x86 only), also for most
66 major releases.</para>
71 <term>FreeBSD/x86</term>
73 <para>On FreeBSD/x86, GHC can be installed using either
74 the ports tree (<literal>cd /usr/ports/lang/ghc && make
75 install</literal>) or from a pre-compiled package
76 available from your local FreeBSD mirror.</para>
81 <para>Other platform-specific packages may be available, check
82 the GHC download page for details.</para>
86 <Title>GHC binary distributions</Title>
89 <IndexTerm><Primary>bundles of binary stuff</Primary></IndexTerm>
93 Binary distributions come in “bundles,” one bundle per file called
94 <literal><replaceable>bundle</replaceable>-<replaceable>platform</replaceable>.tar.gz</Literal>. (See the building guide for the definition of a platform.) Suppose that you untar a binary-distribution bundle, thus:
100 % cd /your/scratch/space
101 % gunzip < ghc-x.xx-sun-sparc-solaris2.tar.gz | tar xvf -</Screen>
106 Then you should find a single directory,
107 <Literal>ghc-<replaceable>version</replaceable></Literal>, with the
112 <IndexTerm><Primary>binary distribution, layout</Primary></IndexTerm>
113 <IndexTerm><Primary>directory layout (binary distributions)</Primary></IndexTerm>
117 <Term><Literal>Makefile.in</Literal></Term>
120 the raw material from which the <Literal>Makefile</Literal>
121 will be made (<Xref LinkEnd="sec-install">).
123 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
125 <Term><Literal>configure</Literal></Term>
128 the configuration script (<Xref LinkEnd="sec-install">).
130 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
132 <Term><Literal>README</Literal></Term>
135 Contains this file summary.
137 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
139 <Term><Literal>INSTALL</Literal></Term>
142 Contains this description of how to install
145 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
147 <Term><Literal>ANNOUNCE</Literal></Term>
150 The announcement message for the bundle.
152 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
154 <Term><Literal>NEWS</Literal></Term>
157 release notes for the bundle—a longer version
158 of <Literal>ANNOUNCE</Literal>. For GHC, the release notes are contained in the User
159 Guide and this file isn't present.
161 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
163 <Term><Literal>bin/<replaceable>platform</replaceable></Literal></Term>
166 contains platform-specific executable
167 files to be invoked directly by the user. These are the files that
168 must end up in your path.
170 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
172 <Term><Literal>lib/<replaceable>platform</replaceable>/</Literal></Term>
175 contains platform-specific support
176 files for the installation. Typically there is a subdirectory for
177 each <Literal>fptools</Literal> project, whose name is the name of the project with its
178 version number. For example, for GHC there would be a sub-directory
179 <Literal>ghc-x.xx</Literal>/ where <Literal>x.xx</Literal> is the version number of GHC in the bundle.
183 These sub-directories have the following general structure:
190 <Term><Literal>libHSstd.a</Literal> etc:</Term>
193 supporting library archives.
195 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
197 <Term><Literal>ghc-iface.prl</Literal> etc:</Term>
202 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
204 <Term><Literal>import/</Literal></Term>
207 <IndexTerm><Primary>Interface files</Primary></IndexTerm> (<Literal>.hi</Literal>) for the prelude.
209 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
211 <Term><Literal>include/</Literal></Term>
214 A few C <Literal>#include</Literal> files.
216 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
219 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
221 <Term><Literal>share/</Literal></Term>
224 contains platform-independent support files
225 for the installation. Again, there is a sub-directory for each
226 <Literal>fptools</Literal> project.
228 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
230 <Term><Literal>html/</Literal></Term>
233 contains HTML documentation files (one
234 sub-directory per project).
236 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
238 <Term><Literal>man/</Literal></Term>
241 contains Unix manual pages.
243 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
247 <Sect3 id="sec-install">
248 <Title>Installing</Title>
251 OK, so let's assume that you have unpacked your chosen bundles into a
252 scratch directory <Literal>fptools</Literal>. What next? Well, you will at least need
253 to run the <Literal>configure</Literal><IndexTerm><Primary>configure</Primary></IndexTerm> script by changing your
254 directory to <Literal>fptools</Literal> and typing <Literal>./configure</Literal>. That should convert
255 <Literal>Makefile.in</Literal> to <Literal>Makefile</Literal>.
259 <IndexTerm><Primary>installing in-place</Primary></IndexTerm>
260 <IndexTerm><Primary>in-place installation</Primary></IndexTerm>
261 You can now either start using the tools <Emphasis>in-situ</Emphasis> without going
262 through any installation process, just type <Literal>make in-place</Literal> to set the
263 tools up for this. You'll also want to add the path which <Literal>make</Literal> will
264 now echo to your <Literal>PATH</Literal> environment variable. This option is useful if
265 you simply want to try out the package and/or you don't have the
266 necessary privileges (or inclination) to properly install the tools
267 locally. Note that if you do decide to install the package `properly'
268 at a later date, you have to go through the installation steps that
273 To install an <Literal>fptools</Literal> package, you'll have to do the following:
282 Edit the <Literal>Makefile</Literal> and check the settings of the following variables:
284 <IndexTerm><Primary>directories, installation</Primary></IndexTerm>
285 <IndexTerm><Primary>installation directories</Primary></IndexTerm>
290 <Term><Literal>platform</Literal></Term>
293 the platform you are going to install for.
295 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
297 <Term><Literal>bindir</Literal></Term>
300 the directory in which to install user-invokable
303 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
305 <Term><Literal>libdir</Literal></Term>
308 the directory in which to install
309 platform-dependent support files.
311 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
313 <Term><Literal>datadir</Literal></Term>
316 the directory in which to install
317 platform-independent support files.
319 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
321 <Term><Literal>infodir</Literal></Term>
324 the directory in which to install Emacs info
327 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
329 <Term><Literal>htmldir</Literal></Term>
332 the directory in which to install HTML
335 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
337 <Term><Literal>dvidir</Literal></Term>
340 the directory in which to install DVI
343 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
346 The values for these variables can be set through invocation of the
347 <Command>configure</Command><IndexTerm><Primary>configure</Primary></IndexTerm>
348 script that comes with the distribution, but doing an optical diff to
349 see if the values match your expectations is always a Good Idea.
353 <Emphasis>Instead of running <Command>configure</Command>, it is
354 perfectly OK to copy <Filename>Makefile.in</Filename> to
355 <Filename>Makefile</Filename> and set all these variables directly
356 yourself. But do it right!</Emphasis>
363 Run <Literal>make install</Literal>. This <Emphasis>
364 should</Emphasis> work with ordinary Unix
365 <Literal>make</Literal>—no need for fancy stuff like GNU
366 <Literal>make</Literal>.
373 <Literal>rehash</Literal> (t?csh or zsh users), so your shell will see the new
374 stuff in your bin directory.
381 Once done, test your “installation” as suggested in
382 <XRef LinkEnd="sec-GHC-test">. Be sure to use a <Literal>-v</Literal>
383 option, so you can see exactly what pathnames it's using.
385 If things don't work as expected, check the list of known pitfalls in
395 <IndexTerm><Primary>link, installed as ghc</Primary></IndexTerm>
396 When installing the user-invokable binaries, this installation
397 procedure will install GHC as <Literal>ghc-x.xx</Literal> where <Literal>x.xx</Literal> is the version
398 number of GHC. It will also make a link (in the binary installation
399 directory) from <Literal>ghc</Literal> to <Literal>ghc-x.xx</Literal>. If you install multiple versions
400 of GHC then the last one “wins”, and “<Literal>ghc</Literal>” will invoke the last
401 one installed. You can change this manually if you want. But
402 regardless, <Literal>ghc-x.xx</Literal> should always invoke GHC version <Literal>x.xx</Literal>.
409 <Title>What bundles there are</Title>
412 <IndexTerm><Primary>bundles, binary</Primary></IndexTerm> There are
413 plenty of “non-basic” GHC bundles. The files for them are
415 <Literal>ghc-x.xx-<replaceable>bundle</replaceable>-<replaceable>platform</replaceable>.tar.gz</Literal>,
416 where the <replaceable>platform</replaceable> is as above, and
417 <replaceable>bundle</replaceable> is one of these:
424 <Term><Literal>prof</Literal>:</Term>
427 Profiling with cost-centres. You probably want this.
428 <IndexTerm><Primary>profiling bundles</Primary></IndexTerm>
429 <IndexTerm><Primary>bundles, profiling</Primary></IndexTerm>
431 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
433 <Term><Literal>par</Literal>:</Term>
436 Parallel Haskell features (sits on top of PVM).
437 You'll want this if you're into that kind of thing.
438 <IndexTerm><Primary>parallel bundles</Primary></IndexTerm>
439 <IndexTerm><Primary>bundles, parallel</Primary></IndexTerm>
441 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
443 <Term><Literal>gran</Literal>:</Term>
446 The “GranSim” parallel-Haskell simulator
447 (hmm… mainly for implementors).
448 <IndexTerm><Primary>bundles, gransim</Primary></IndexTerm>
449 <IndexTerm><Primary>gransim bundles</Primary></IndexTerm>
451 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
453 <Term><Literal>ticky</Literal>:</Term>
456 “Ticky-ticky” profiling; very detailed
457 information about “what happened when I ran this program”—really
459 <IndexTerm><Primary>bundles, ticky-ticky</Primary></IndexTerm>
460 <IndexTerm><Primary>ticky-ticky bundles</Primary></IndexTerm>
462 </ListItem></VarListEntry>
467 One likely scenario is that you will grab <Emphasis>two</Emphasis>
468 binary bundles—basic, and profiling. We don't usually make the
469 rest, although you can build them yourself from a source distribution.
472 <para>The various GHC bundles are designed to be unpacked into the
473 same directory; then installing as per the directions above will
474 install the whole lot in one go. Note: you <emphasis>must</emphasis>
475 at least have the basic GHC binary distribution bundle, these extra
476 bundles won't install on their own.</para>
480 <Sect3 id="sec-GHC-test">
481 <Title>Testing that GHC seems to be working
485 <IndexTerm><Primary>testing a new GHC</Primary></IndexTerm>
489 The way to do this is, of course, to compile and run <Emphasis>this</Emphasis> program
490 (in a file <Literal>Main.hs</Literal>):
496 main = putStr "Hello, world!\n"
502 Compile the program, using the <Literal>-v</Literal> (verbose) flag to verify that
503 libraries, etc., are being found properly:
506 % ghc -v -o hello Main.hs</Screen>
515 Hello, world!</Screen>
520 Some simple-but-profitable tests are to compile and run the notorious
521 <Literal>nfib</Literal><IndexTerm><Primary>nfib</Primary></IndexTerm> program, using different numeric types. Start with
522 <Literal>nfib :: Int -> Int</Literal>, and then try <Literal>Integer</Literal>, <Literal>Float</Literal>, <Literal>Double</Literal>,
523 <Literal>Rational</Literal> and perhaps the overloaded version. Code for this is
524 distributed in <Literal>ghc/misc/examples/nfib/</Literal> in a source distribution.
527 <para>For more information on how to “drive” GHC, read
537 <Sect1 id="sec-install-windows"><Title>Installing on Windows</Title>
540 Getting the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (post 5.02) to run on Windows platforms is
541 a snap: the Installshield does everything you need.
544 <Sect2><Title>Installing GHC on Windows</Title>
547 To install GHC, use the following steps:
550 <listitem><para>Download the Installshield <Filename>setup.exe</Filename>
551 from the GHC download page
553 URL="http://www.haskell.org/ghc">haskell.org</ULink>.
556 <listitem><para>Run <Filename>setup.exe</Filename>.
557 (If you have a previous version of GHC, Installshield will offer to "modify",
558 or "remove" GHC. Choose "remove"; then run <Filename>setup.exe</Filename> a
559 second time. This time it should offer to install.)
562 At this point you should find GHCi and the GHC documentation are
563 available in your Start menu under "Start/Programs/Glasgow Haskell Compiler".
568 The final dialogue box from the install process tells you where GHC has
569 been installed. If you want to invoke GHC from a command line, add this
570 to your PATH environment variable. Usually, GHC installs into
571 <Filename>c:/ghc/ghc-5.02</Filename>, though the last part of this path
572 depends on which version of GHC you are installing, of course.
573 You need to add <Filename>c:/ghc/ghc-5.02/bin</Filename> to your path if yo
577 GHC needs a directory in which to create, and later delete, temporary files.
578 It uses the standard Windows procedure <literal>GetTempPath()</literal> to
579 find a suitable directory. This procedure returns:
581 <listitem><para>The path in environment variable TMP,
582 if TMP is set.</para></listitem>
583 <listitem><para>Otherwise, the path in environment variable TEMP,
584 if TEMP is set.</para></listitem>
585 <listitem><para>Otherwise, there is a per-user default which varies
586 between versions of Windows. On NT and XP-ish versions, it might
588 <Filename>c:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp</filename>
591 The main point is that if you don't do anything GHC will work fine;
592 but if you want to control where the directory is, you can do so by
598 To test the fruits of your labour, try now to compile a simple
604 module Main(main) where
606 main = putStrLn "Hello, world!"
607 bash$ ghc -o main main.hs
616 You do <emphasis>not</emphasis> need the Cygwin toolchain, or anything
617 else, to install and run GHC.
620 An installation of GHC requires about 140M of disk space.
621 To run GHC comfortably, your machine should have at least
626 <Sect2><title>Moving GHC around</title>
628 At the moment, GHC installs in a fixed place (<Filename>c:/ghc/ghc-x.yy</Filename>,
629 but once it is installed, you can freely move the entire GHC tree just by copying
630 the <Filename>ghc-x.yy</Filename> directory. (You may need to fix up
631 the links in "Start/Programs/Glasgow Haskell Compiler" if you do this.)
634 It is OK to put GHC tree in a directory whose path involves spaces. However,
635 don't do this if you use want to use GHC with the Cygwin tools,
636 because Cygwin can get confused when this happpens.
637 We havn't quite got to the bottom of this, but so far as we know it's not
638 a problem with GHC itself. Nevertheless, just to keep life simple we usually
639 put GHC in a place with a space-free path.
643 <Sect2 id="winfaq"><title>Installing ghc-win32 FAQ</title>
651 I'm having trouble with symlinks.
657 Symlinks only work under Cygwin (<Xref LinkEnd="sec-install">), so binaries
658 not linked to the Cygwin DLL, in particular those built for Mingwin, will not
669 I'm getting “permission denied” messages from the <Command>rm</Command> or
670 <Command>mv</Command>.
676 This can have various causes: trying to rename a directory when an Explorer
677 window is open on it tends to fail. Closing the window generally cures the
678 problem, but sometimes its cause is more mysterious, and logging off and back
679 on or rebooting may be the quickest cure.
688 Further information on using GHC under Windows can be found in <ULink
689 URL="http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~sof/ghc-win32.html">Sigbjørn Finne's
690 pages</ULink>. Note: ignore the installation instructions, which are rather
691 out of date; the <Emphasis>Miscellaneous</Emphasis> section at the bottom of
692 the page is of most interest, covering topics beyond the scope of this
700 <Sect1 id="sec-install-files"><Title>The layout of installed files</Title>
703 This section describes what files get installed where. You don't need to know it
704 if you are simply installing GHC, but it is vital information if you are changing
707 <para> GHC is installed in two directory trees:</para>
710 <term>Binary directory</term>
711 <listitem> <para> known as <Filename>$(bindir)</Filename>, holds executables that
712 the user is expected to invoke. Notably,
713 <Filename>ghc</Filename> and <Filename>ghci</FileName>. On Unix, this directory
714 is typically something like <Filename>/usr/local/bin</Filename>. On Windows,
715 however, this directory is always <Filename>$(libdir)/bin</Filename>.
720 <term>Library directory,</term>
721 <listitem> <para> known as <Filename>$(libdir)</Filename>, holds all the
722 support files needed to run GHC. On Unix, this
723 directory is usually something like <Filename>/usr/lib/ghc/ghc-5.02</Filename>. </para>
729 When GHC runs, it must know where its library directory is.
730 It finds this out in one of two ways:
735 <Filename>$(libdir)</Filename> is passed to GHC using the <option>-B</option> flag.
736 On Unix (but not Windows), the installed <filename>ghc</filename> is just a one-line
737 shell script that invokes the real GHC, passing a suitable <option>-B</option> flag.
738 [All the user-supplied flags
739 follow, and a later <option>-B</option> flag overrides an earlier one, so a user-supplied
744 <para> On Windows (but not Unix), if no <option>-B</option> flag is given, GHC uses a system
745 call to find the directory in which the running GHC executable lives, and derives
746 <Filename>$(libdir)</Filename> from that. [Unix lacks such a system call.]
751 <sect2> <title>Layout of the library directory</title>
753 <para>The layout of the library directory is almost identical on
754 Windows and Unix, as follows: layout:</para>
758 package.conf GHC package configuration
759 ghc-usage.txt Message displayed by ghc ––help
761 bin/ [Win32 only] User-visible binaries
765 unlit Remove literate markup
767 touchy.exe [Win32 only]
768 perl.exe [Win32 only]
771 ghc-x.xx GHC executable [Unix only]
773 ghc-split Asm code splitter
774 ghc-asm Asm code mangler
776 gcc-lib/ [Win32 only] Support files for gcc
777 specs gcc configuration
779 cpp0.exe gcc support binaries
786 libmingw32.a Standard
791 imports/ GHC interface files
792 std/*.hi 'std' library
793 lang/*.hi 'lang' library
796 include/ C header files
797 StgMacros.h GHC-specific
798 ..etc... header files
800 mingw/*.h [Win32 only] Mingwin header files
802 libHSrts.a GHC library archives
807 HSstd1.o GHC library linkables
808 HSstd2.o (used by ghci, which does
809 HSlang.o not grok .a files yet)
812 <para>Note that:</para>
815 <para>On Win32, the <filename>$(libdir)/bin</filename> directory contains user-visible binaries;
816 add it to your <filename>PATH</filename>. The <filename>ghci</filename> executable is a <filename>.bat</filename>
817 file which invokes <filename>ghc</filename>. </para>
819 <para>The GHC executable is the Real Thing (no intervening
820 shell scripts or <filename>.bat</filename> files).
821 Reason: we sometimes invoke GHC with very long command lines,
822 and <filename>cmd.exe</filename> (which executes <filename>.bat</filename> files)
823 truncates them. [We assume people won't invoke ghci with very long
824 command lines.]</para>
826 <para>On Unix, the user-invokable <filename>ghc</filename> invokes <filename>$(libdir)/ghc-<replaceable>version</replaceable></filename>,
827 passing a suitable <option>-B</option> flag.
832 <para><filename>$(libdir)</filename> also contains support
833 binaries. These are <emphasis>not</emphasis> expected to be
834 on the user's <filename>PATH</filename>, but and are invoked
835 directly by GHC. In the Makefile system, this directory is
836 also called <filename>$(libexecdir)</filename>, but
837 <emphasis>you are not free to change it</emphasis>. It must
838 be the same as <filename>$(libdir)</filename>.</para>
842 <para>We distribute <filename>gcc</filename> with the Win32 distribution of GHC, so that users
843 don't need to install <filename>gcc</filename>, nor need to care about which version it is.
844 All <filename>gcc</filename>'s support files are kept in <filename>$(libdir)/gcc-lib/</filename>.
849 <para>Similarly, we distribute <filename>perl</filename> and a <filename>touch</filename>
850 replacement (<filename>touchy.exe</filename>)
851 with the Win32 distribution of GHC. </para>
855 <para>The support programs <filename>ghc-split</filename>
856 and <filename>ghc-asm</filename> are Perl scripts. The
857 first line says <literal>#!/bin/perl</literal>; on Unix, the
858 script is indeed invoked as a shell script, which invokes
859 Perl; on Windows, GHC invokes
860 <filename>$(libdir)/perl.exe</filename> directly, which
861 treats the <literal>#!/bin/perl</literal> as a comment.
862 Reason: on Windows we want to invoke the Perl distributed
863 with GHC, rather than assume some installed one. </para>
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