INSTALL

This is the INSTALL instructions for a binary distribution of one of
the fptools projects. For more details on what on earth this package
is up to, please consult the README and ANNOUNCE.

To start using the bundle, you can either:

* use it in-place, i.e., don't go ahead with a
  full install, but just set it up to use the unpacked
  distribution in-situ.

* get it over with, and do the full install (details of how are ahead).

NOTE Win32 users: see comment below before continuing.

To set the ball rolling, run the configure script (as usual, run
the script with --help to see what options it supports).

This will figure out what platform you're running on, and a couple of other
interesting pieces of trivia, which it will then fill in the Makefile.in
template to give you a real Makefile. 

[Win32 users: don't be alarmed if you should encounter the following
 message from the configure script:
  
      not updating unwritable cache ./config.cache

This is a known problem of generated autoconf configure scripts running
on cygwin, but harmless (it only means you get to re-do all the configure
tests should you decide to re-run the script.)
]

Have a look at the Makefile to see if you agree with the information
therein. If you want to use the bundle in-place, now run:

	make in-place

If you're installing,  run

	make install 

(`make show-install-setup' prints the details of where the different
pieces of the bundle are heading when -- possibly helpful).

GHC's installation instructions have more information, check out
http://www.haskell.org/ghc/documentation.html.

Bug reports/suggestions for improvement to the installation procedure/setup
(as well as other GHC related troubles you're experiencing, of course),
gratefully received at glasgow-haskell-bugs@dcs.gla.ac.uk

Enjoy.


-------Win32 users only----------------------------------------
NOTE to Win32 users: to enjoy any sort of happiness with the GHC
tools, you will have to install the cygwin toolchain, which dresses
up the Win32 environment into something more UNIX-like (which
this initial port of ghc relies on being the case). The cygwin tools
are available from

    http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/

GHC was built with beta20.1 of the cygwin tools and depends on it
to work.

Install cygwin before continuing. Couple of things to remember
doing while installing these two:

  - Create a toplevel /bin directory, and copy bash.exe into it
    as sh.exe (we'll need this for running the configure script.)
    Add /bin to your PATH.
  - Create a toplevel /tmp directory.

Additionally, ghc requires perl to operate, so included in the
binary distribution is a perl binary, (perl.exe in the toplevel
directory.) Install (as in copy :-) this somewhere along your
PATH too (/bin is a good choice.)

This is hardly beatiful, but it avoids having to download and install
yet another package, including piles of (useful) perl libraries that the
ghc perl code does not require to operate. Besides which, there's a
dearth of readily useable perl distributions 'out there' that contain
cygwin-compiled binaries, something we really do depend on.

-------Win32 users only----------------------------------------