No available version of ghc-prim -any with GHC 7.2.2

Question

I've got ghc-7.2.2 unknown linux tar.bz2 installed in $HOME on archlinux.

After installing a number of packages successfully with cabal-dev trying to install eg. parsec-numbers, text, ad etc I get:

cabal: cannot configure base-4.4.1.0 It requires ghc-prim -any
integer-simple and rts -any
There is no available version (of each of the above for example)

Is this an obvious fault in my installation or a possible bug?

I have the appropriate $GHC_PACKAGES_PATH set and have run ghc-pkg recache.

Here's my list of installed packages:

/home/jim/cabal-dev/packages-7.2.2.conf:
    QuickCheck-2.4.2
    bmp-1.1.2.1
    comonad-1.1.1.1
    comonad-transformers-2.0.2
    comonads-fd-2.0.2
    contravariant-0.1.3
    data-lens-2.0.2
    data-reify-0.6
    distributive-0.2.0.1
    free-2.0.2
    mtl-2.0.1.0
    primitive-0.4.0.1
    random-1.0.1.1
    repa-2.2.0.1
    repa-algorithms-2.2.0.1
    repa-bytestring-2.2.0.1
    repa-io-2.2.0.1
    semigroupoids-1.2.6
    semigroups-0.8
    transformers-0.2.2.0
    vector-0.9.1

/home/jim/lib/ghc-7.2.2/package.conf.d:
    Cabal-1.12.0
    array-0.3.0.3
    base-4.4.1.0
    bin-package-db-0.0.0.0
    (binary-0.5.0.2)
    bytestring-0.9.2.0
    containers-0.4.1.0
    directory-1.1.0.1
    extensible-exceptions-0.1.1.3
    ffi-1.0
    filepath-1.2.0.1
    (ghc-7.2.2)
    ghc-prim-0.2.0.0
    (haskell2010-1.1.0.0)
    (haskell98-2.0.0.0)
    hoopl-3.8.7.1
    hpc-0.5.1.0
    integer-gmp-0.3.0.0
    old-locale-1.0.0.3
    old-time-1.0.0.7
    pretty-1.1.0.0
    process-1.1.0.0
    rts-1.0
    template-haskell-2.6.0.0
    time-1.2.0.5
    unix-2.5.0.0

Yep, bytestring-0.9.0.2 should have been -0.9.2.0, apologies.

cabal-dev -v3 install bytestring --reinstall produces:

cabal-dev 0.9
built with Cabal 1.12.0
searching for cabal in path.
found cabal at /usr/bin/cabal
("/usr/bin/cabal",["--numeric-version"])
/usr/bin/cabal is version 0.10.2
Using cabal-install 0.10.2 at FoundOnSystem {locationPath = "/usr/bin/cabal"}
No sandbox specified. Using cabal-dev
Using cabal-dev as the relative cabal-dev sandbox
Using /home/jim/cabal-dev as the cabal-dev sandbox
Creating local repo /home/jim/cabal-dev/packages
searching for ghc-pkg in path.
found ghc-pkg at /home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg
("/home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg",["--version"])
/home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg is version 7.2.2
Using ghc-pkg 7.2.2
("/usr/bin/cabal",["--version"])
Complete arguments to cabal-install:
["--config-file=/home/jim/cabal-dev/cabal.config","install","--verbose=3","--reinstall"]
("/usr/bin/cabal",["--config-file=/home/jim/cabal-dev/cabal.config","install","--verbose=3","--reinstall","bytestring"])
searching for ghc in path.
found ghc at /home/jim/bin/ghc
("/home/jim/bin/ghc",["--numeric-version"])
/home/jim/bin/ghc is version 7.2.2
looking for tool "ghc-pkg" near compiler in /home/jim/bin
found ghc-pkg in /home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg
("/home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg",["--version"])
/home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg is version 7.2.2
("/home/jim/bin/ghc",["--supported-languages"])
("/home/jim/bin/ghc",["--info"])
Reading installed packages...
("/home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg",["dump","--global","-v2"])
("/home/jim/bin/ghc-pkg",["dump","--package-conf=/home/jim/cabal-dev/packages-7.2.2.conf","-v2"])
("/home/jim/bin/ghc",["--print-libdir"])
Reading available packages...
Resolving dependencies...
selecting
/usr/bin/cabal returned ExitFailure 1

Ha ha. Trying to catch the output with &2>file misses off "cabal: cannot configure bytestring-0.9.2.0. It requires ghc-prim -any...(same as before)"

Answer 1

That message,

cabal: cannot configure base-4.4.1.0

means cabal is trying to reinstall base, or rather, fortunately it's not trying to actually do that (that's impossible, base is too tightly interwoven with the compiler, you absolutely positively cannot reinstall that). But you are trying to install something that would require reinstalling base.

The problem is that one (or more) of the packages you're trying to install depends on integer-simple. base depends on either integer-gmp or integer-simple. Both of these packages provide an implementation of the Integer type and some fundamental operations involving it, so you can have only one of these two. The default is integer-gmp because it's the one with far superior performance, and that's the one you have installed (and all[?] prebuilt binaries are built with that).

If you really need a package depending on integer-simple, you have to build GHC from source yourself (I recommend keeping the one with integer-gmp after the build nevertheless, you'd have to keep them in separate locations, though, if they're the same GHC version, e.g. the normal in ~/bin (and ~/lib), the other in ~/simple/$dir).

Building it from source is not really difficult, it does take a while, though. The procedure is

1. download the source tarball and unpack it
2. open mk/config.mk.in in an editor, change INTEGER_LIBRARY to integer-simple there and save
3. $ cd ghc-7.2.2
4. $ ./configure --prefix=$HOME/whereever/you/want/it
5. $ make && make install