mycabal

Simple script for installing Haskell-packages under Debian GNU/Linux
with help of cabal and GNU Stow.

http://iki.fi/juhtolv/hacks/sh/cabal/

Author:
Juhapekka Tolvanen
http://iki.fi/juhtolv/
juhtolv (at) iki (dot) fi

This script is public domain.
There is no warranty.


This script probably works just fine also under other
GNU/Linux-distributions; you just need to find those corresponding
packages in native package format of your distribution, but under
Debian-derived distributions (for example Ubuntu Linux) this procedure
I have explained below should work without modifications.

Home page of GNU Stow is here:

http://www.gnu.org/software/stow/

First you need to install at least these Debian-packages:

cabal-install
stow
ghc6

Also some libraries of ghc may be needed. If some needed
Haskell-package is available as a Debian-package, install it, first.
Generally naming convention of those Debian-packages goes like in this
example:

Installation or running of some Haskell-software or -package
complains, that a Haskell package called “digest” is missing. In that
case you must install these Debian-packages and their dependencies:

libghc-digest-dev
libghc-digest-prof

You may also need this:

libghc-digest-doc

But if some Haskell-softare or -package is not available as a
Debian-package, you can install it with this script called mycabal.

As a root create directory for using GNU stow:

mkdir -p /usr/local/stow/cabal
chown root: /usr/local/stow/cabal
chmod ugo+rx,go-w /usr/local/stow/cabal

Create settings- and cache-directory for cabal and put that file
called config there:

mkdir /root/.cabal
mv (some path)/config /root/.cabal/config
chmod -R go-rwx /root/.cabal

Edit that file called config, if needed. At least you may want to add
or comment mirrors of hackage.

Put that script itself to some directory that is in your $PATH , but
not in in other (l)users $PATH :

mv (some path)/mycabal /root/bin/mycabal
chmod go-rwx,u+rwx /root/bin/mycabal

First you must update package list of cabal:

nice -n 19 cabal update

Run that command sometimes.

Now you are ready to install Haskell-software with mycabal.

If you already have some stuff in /usr/local/stow/cabal , de-stow its
directopry, first:

cd /usr/local/stow
stow -D cabal

Now install some Haskell-package with mycabal:

mycabal install wikipedia4epub

If that installation complains, that some Haskell-package is missing,
try to find its Debian-package and install it. If it is not available
as Debian-package, just install it with mycabal with that
Haskell-package you were originally trying to install.

mycabal install epub wikipedia4epub

After that original Haskell-package and all its needed dependencies
have been compiled and installed, you must stow:

cd /usr/local/stow
stow cabal

/usr/local/bin must be in every users’ $PATH . If your shell has a
builtin command called ”rehash”, run it. Now your new Haskell-package
is installed and ready to run. Here is an example:

cd ${HOME)/Documents/Wikipedia
wiki4e-mkepub-subtree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Reznor
mount /media/CybookOpus/ && cd /media/CybookOpus/eBooks/Wikipedia
cp  ${HOME)/Documents/Wikipedia/*.epub ./
cd
umount /media/CybookOpus/

That’s all, folks!