Quick Start: Just building and installing GHC

"I just want to build it!"

No problem. This recipe should build and install a working GHC with all the default settings. (unless you're on Windows, in which case go to Building/Windows).

If you are starting from a darcs checkout, then first of all:

$ autoreconf

(this step isn't necessary if you have a source distribution).

Now, everybody:

$ ./configure
$ make
$ make install

For GHC, this will do a 2-stage bootstrap build of the compiler, with profiling libraries, and install the results in the default location (under /usr/local on Unix, for example).

The configure script is a standard GNU autoconf script, and accepts the usual options for changing install locations and the like. Run ./configure --help for a list of options.

If you want to do anything at all non-standard, or you want to do some development, read on...