[Haskell-cafe] Confusions about the Haskell Platform (for Mac)

Gregory Collins greg at gregorycollins.net
Tue Apr 6 11:37:20 EDT 2010

Sean Leather <leather at cs.uu.nl> writes:

> 4. The current link for the Mac image points to
> http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/2010.1.0.0/haskell-platform-2010.1.0.1-i386.dmg
> . Note the inconsistency between the version in the directory and file
> names.

You can think of that one as the second edition of the 2010.1 beta
version. Agree that the directories should match. Too bad the installer
still doesn't work -- I'm working on it everyone, but the Mac installer
system is incredibly crufty and broken, and Snow Leopard broke a lot of
stuff for me.

> 5. The directions on http://hackage.haskell.org/platform/mac.html say:
>   After downloading:
>     * Open the .dmg file
>     * Follow the install instructions
>   I see no "install instructions" in the .dmg file. I only see the following files:
>     * GHC-6.12.1-i386.pkg
>     * Haskell Platform 2010.1.0.1.pkg
>     * Uninstall GHC

When you mount the .dmg file a Finder window should pop up with the
install instructions in a background image. Let me guess: this isn't
working in Leopard? I should put a readme in there.

> 7. Why can't I have a single .pkg file?

Short answer: I can't figure out how, and not for lack of trying,
either. What I do is take the binary installer that the GHC guys build
as a starting point. Despite many hours of reverse-engineering I cannot
for the life of me figure out how to extract the GHC installer package
from the binary "metapackage".

My experience has been that if you unxar the metapackage and try to copy
the included package file into a new metapackage, the mac installer
tools barf. Long-term, I'm planning on just building GHC from source so
I can package a one-click installer, but I don't have infinite time for
this project and doing psychic battle with the evil warlocks who cooked
up the Mac installer is a challenge.

If anyone has expertise in this area and a willingness to help, please
contact me off-list.

> Why do I have an "Uninstall GHC" and not an "Uninstall Haskell
> Platform"?

The platform installer is supposed to erase previous platform editions
before it installs itself.

Gregory Collins <greg at gregorycollins.net>

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