Version 6.8.3 (released 17 June 2008)

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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 i386 Linux. This is a complete build, including interactive system, profiling libraries and documentation.

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, known to work on versions 8 and 10, prepared by Christian Maeder 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.

If you are on Solaris 8 or 9, please see #1291 for some hoops you may have to jump through.

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

x86/Solaris

This is a binary distribution for Solaris, 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.

MacOS X (PowerPC)

This is a binary distribution for Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) on PowerPC G5 machines, prepared by Christian Maeder. It needs libreadline.5.2.dylib, libncurses.5.dylib and libgmp.3.dylib under /opt/local/lib/.

MacOS X (Intel)

This is an installer for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), prepared by Manuel Chakravarty. The package requires Xcode 3.0 to be already installed. You can find Xcode 3.0 on your Leopard installation DVD (or at http://developer.apple.com/.

This is a binary distribution for Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), prepared by Christian Maeder. It needs libreadline.5.2.dylib, libncurses.5.dylib and libgmp.3.dylib under /opt/local/lib/.

Source Distribution

  • ghc-6.8.3-src.tar.bz2 (6.8 MB). This provides the compiler and a minimal set of libraries. For more information on building, see the building guide.
  • ghc-6.8.3-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 6.4.2 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.