Version 6.8.2 (released 12 December 2007)

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Distribution packages

GHC is packaged for a number of operating systems and distributions. While they may lag behind the latest GHC release, advantages such as dependency checking and ease of uninstallation mean we recommend using them anyway, unless you have a particular need for new features or bug fixes.

Binary Packages

The OS-specific packages (eg. RPMs on Linux) are generally a better bet than the vanilla .tar.bz2 binary bundles, because they will check for dependencies and allow the package to be uninstalled at a later date.

However, if you don't have permission to install binaries on your system, or you want to install somewhere other than the default place (/usr or /usr/local on a Unix system), then you'll need to use a .tar.bz2 binary bundle.

Available binary distributions:

Linux (x86)

  • Generic Linux with glibc 2.3 (e.g. RedHat 9). This is a complete build, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation. Note: You need the libreadline.so.4 and libncurses.so.5 libraries to use this. Newer Linux distributions come with libreadline.so.5 only (e.g. SuSE 9.2), so we have provided a readline4 compatibility RPM for this case.

  • ghc-6.8.2-i386-unknown-linux.tar.bz2

    This is a binary distribution, prepared by Christian Maeder. It uses libreadline.so.5 instead of libreadline.so.4.

Linux (x86_64)

  • Generic .tar.bz2 binary bundle. This was built on Fedora FC5, your mileage may vary. It is a complete build, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation.

Sparc/Solaris

This is a binary distribution for Solaris 10, prepared by Christian Maeder on a "sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-280R" using 

    SRC_HC_OPTS += -optc-mcpu=ultrasparc -opta-mcpu=ultrasparc

You will also need (amongst others) libreadline.so.5, libncurses.so.5, libm.so.2 and libgmp.so.3, which may mean setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

There may be problems with gcc-3.4.x; see #951 for details.

x86/Solaris

This is a binary distribution for Solaris 10, prepared by Christian Maeder. You will also need (amongst others) libreadline.so.5, libncurses.so.5, libm.so.2 and libgmp.so.3, which may mean setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Windows (x86) (standalone)

This is a complete build, and should work for Microsoft Windows 2000, XP and Vista. It also includes support for compiling C++ files.

If just want the files, you have the choice of:

FreeBSD (x86_64)

Wilhelm B. Kloke has provided a binary distribution tarball for FreeBSD x86_64.

MacOS X (PowerPC)

This is a binary distribution for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), prepared by Christian Maeder. You will also need a GMP framework and a readline framework. For instructions see here.

MacOS X (Intel)

This is a binary distribution for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), prepared by Manuel Chakravarty. You will also need Xcode 3.0 (as available from the Leopard upgrade/install DVD or developer.apple.com) and readline 5.2 (preferably installed via macports in /opt/local). If you have GMP.framework installed (a leftover from 10.4), remove it first.

This is a binary distribution for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), prepared by Christian Maeder. You will also need a GMP framework and a readline framework. For instructions see here.

AIX 5.1L (PowerPC)

This is an unregisterised build, with no GHCi support. It was provided by Audrey Tang.

Source Distribution

  • ghc-6.8.2-src.tar.bz2 (6.7 MB). This provides the compiler and a minimal set of libraries. For more information on building, see the building guide.
  • ghc-6.8.2-src-extralibs.tar.bz2 (1.9 MB). If you unpack this tarball on top of the above then you will get a number of extra libraries. However, the build will take significantly longer. Alternatively these, and many others, can be downloaded and compiled from Hackage once GHC is built.

The source distribution needs an installed GHC (version 6.0 at least). If your platform isn't currently supported with a binary distribution, then you'll need to consult the section on Porting GHC in the Building Guide.