backport of ghc 6.4.2 - fixes some annoying bugs

[Ketil Malde]

Binary package hint: ghc6

The current Dapper version of ghc6 (6.4.1) has some annoyances related to package handling - e.g. building cabalized libraries with profiling doesn't work. Currently, this means that I must manually install new versions of Cabal and central libraries to get an adequate system. I believe 6.4.2 fixes this and many other issues, while being very backwards compatible.

Thus, although for myself I'll probably switch to Edgy when it stabilizes, I think it would be a good idea to have 6.4.2 available for Dapper as well.

Attention: backporting ghc6 will render library packages uninstallable.

[J. Pablo Fernández (pupeno)]

I also think it would be a good idea to have 6.4.2 available for Dapper. To avoid some head-aches.

[Johan Tibell (johan-tibell)]

I need this too. A few libraries I need depends on 6.4.2 (if they really need 6.4.2 or not I don't know) and it would be nice not to have to build GHC manually to use them.

[StefanPotyra (sistpoty)]

Hi,

backporting ghc6 is a major problem due to the nature of the generated libraries (especially the debian build system): Since it's not guaranteed that different versions of ghc6 will produce binary compatible libraries (also this might be the case for 6.4.2/6.4.1), the debian haskell policy forces to have haskell libraries depend strictly on ghc with the same upstream version the libraries have been built. Thus a backport of ghc6 would automatically render all haskell libraries uninstallable.

For cabal: There is also libghc6-cabal-dev package which contains the cabal system and is not based on the source included with ghc6. IIRC it should be newer in dapper than cabal version included in ghc6. Could you try wether this solves some of the problems? (backporting this would be much easier btw.)

However I'm open to any suggestions.

Cheers,
     Stefan

[StefanPotyra (sistpoty)]

Hi,

I'm rejecting this bug now, since I don't see a way how to backport gch6 without breaking the library packages.
Feel free to reopen if you have a good suggestion how to do it.

Cheers,
    Stefan.