Gentoo

Packages

Gentoo Linux has fairly good support for Haskell.

There are packages for GHC and more than 60 other Haskell libraries and tools. There are also packages for other Haskell implementations like Hugs98 and Helium.

You can check the currently available versions of packages:

• libraries and tools
• ghc
• hugs98
• darcs
• xmonad

There is support for most packages on several architectures: x86, amd64, sparc and ppc. There is support for some packages on ppc64, alpha, ia64 and hppa.

Gentoo Haskell Overlay

If you want the most up to date (but also most untested) packages you can use the Gentoo Haskell Overlay. "Overlays" are package trees for Portage. They contain additional ebuilds for Gentoo. They are maintained by Gentoo developers, but are distributed separately from the main Portage tree. Haskell has its own dedicated overlay containing lots of haskell projects. See the Gentoo Overlays: Users' Guide for how to use overlays. However, don't forget that like with all overlays, you use the ebuilds there at your own risk. Do not report errors in overlay ebuilds to the Gentoo Bugzilla!

Support and bugs

• Bugs found in ebuilds within the official tree should be reported in the Gentoo bugzilla. Bugs found in the overlay should be reported in the IRC channel.
• There is a #gentoo-haskell IRC channel on freenode.net for people interested in developing and testing haskell-related ebuilds.

Filing bugs can also be used to ask for new packages or new versions of existing packages. We would like to encourage users to suggest any packages they feel are useful but are currently not included in portage. Though note that we generally only package released versions of software where there are tarballs available and where there is an expectation that the software will be maintained. We also greatly prefer packages that are distributed via Hackage as it allows us to use automated tools.

haskell-updater

Work is currently progressing on haskell-updater, the replacement for ghc-updater currently installed with dev-lang/ghc. There are four main advantages:

• Now supports pkgcore and paludis, not just portage. This can easily be extended if anyone decides to create Yet Another Gentoo Package Manager.
• Will also rebuild Haskell libraries that have had their dependencies changed (ala revdep-rebuild/reconcilio/etc.). That is, it will rebuild packages corresponding to the libraries listed by "ghc-pkg check".
• It will be shipped separately to GHC, which means we can update it (ghc-updater has been frozen due to not wanting to cause problems with versions already installed, etc.).
• It's written in our favourite language (Haskell, of course) rather than a weird conglomeration of bash and Python. This means it's faster (presumably), more flexible, and we're more likely to maintain it since it's in a language we prefer and are more used to.

There are ebuilds available both in portage and the #Gentoo Haskell Overlay. For more information, feel free to visit us at #gentoo-haskell IRC channel.

Haskell Platform

The Haskell Platform is a blessed library and tool suite for Haskell distilled from Hackage. Naturally Gentoo supports it. Find out how to install it on your Gentoo box at Gentoo/HaskellPlatform.